Costa Rica’s Supreme Court suspends decree permitting IVF after appeal

(ICR Archive)

October 8^th, 2015 (ICR News) Costa Rica’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, has suspended a September executive decree that authorized the assisted reproduction technique, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) until the Court is able to resolve an appeal filed by Christian lawmakers.

The Court has no deadline to resolve the appeal, which could significantly delay the availability of the treatment in Costa Rica – or even reinstate the ban – which had been in place since 2000.

Rep. Mario Redondo of the Christian Democratic Alliance, one of the signers of the appeal, told La Nacion that the appeal is based on three pillars: the authorization and regulation of IVF can come only as the result of legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly, not by executive decree; that the executive decree violates the autonomy of Costa Rica’s public health and social security system, known as CCSS; and that the decree violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the constitutional principle of the inviolability of human life.

“The most important thing is that we can save lives, because every day that we delay IVF, embryos are being saved,” Redondo said.

For its part, the Solis administration stands by the decree, which it says is constitutional.

In-vitro fertilization had been banned in Costa Rica – an officially Catholic country – since 2000 under pressure from the Church, and has long been the only country in the Americas to ban the reproductive procedure.

The Catholic Church has said it opposes the procedure because many IVF cycles are not successful, leading to the loss of life of fertilized eggs.

The administration’s September decree allowing the procedure came just hours before a deadline set by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 2012 that the country’s IVF ban infringed on citizens’ fundamental rights.

That court has yet to respond to yesterday’s decision by Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court.