Court cannot force Costa Rica to legalize in vitro fertilization, bishop says

Bishop Jose Francisco Ulloa of Costa Rica insisted that the Inter-American Human Rights Court cannot impose the legalization of in vitro fertilization on the country.

“We are being advised by experts who have told us that the Court has no competency to intervene in a case like this,” he told CNA on Feb.13.

The Court is currently suing Costa Rica to force it to allow the procedure and the country has until April 30 to respond.

Bishop Ulloa said the Costa Rican bishops have asked the country’s president, Laura Chinchilla, to declare that the issue of in vitro fertilization is outside the Court’s competency and to affirm Costa Rica’s longstanding defense of the right to life.

The Church will always defend life “from the moment of conception, against anything that might threaten it,” in accord with the Costa Rican constitution, Bishop Ulloa added.

He called the practice of in vitro fertilization part of “the culture of death that also goes against the principles of the Church.”

The bishop also pointed out that there are other techniques to help couples unable to conceive that are ethical and do not violate the defense of human life. “We are very firm on this issue of defending life from the moment of conception, as we have always been,” he said.

Some 66 pro-life organizations have called on Costa Rica not to allow the Inter-American Human Rights Court to impose in vitro fertilization, arguing that it could open the door to the legalization of abortion throughout the region.