“Rich women get abortions. Poor women die.” Courtesy of the archdiocese of San José.
The fight for legal, saf,e and free abortion will be hard and it will take a long time. This was stated by the Aborto Legal Costa Rica movement at a press conference, when they announced that they will demonstrate in front of the Presidential House on August 8th.
We know it’s going to be a tough fight, we know it’s going to take a lot of time, but we’re going to be here,”
said Ana María Rodríguez, spokeswoman for the movement.
The conglomerate of organizations requires the president of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado, to sign the technical norm that regulates therapeutic abortion in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican Criminal Code establishes that when a woman’s life is in danger due to her pregnancy status, she can resort to this technique to safeguard her well-being. However, in practice, doctors can decide not to do it due to legal ignorance, for religious and moral reasons, and the lack of clear guidelines.
The Legal Abortion movement Costa Rica was born on July 8th, after Alvarado publicly said that abortion distracts from the priority issues that the country must address, including unemployment, fiscal deficit, and insecurity. In a press release sent on July 16th, the movement argues that with these statements “Alvarado made invisible a historical debt of almost 50 years by not allowing access to abortion that is already guaranteed by law.”
Alvarado also indicated, during an interview in La Voz de Guanacaste, that this norm will be signed when he sees fit.
I would like to emphasize the repudiation of these statements by the president, because he said that he will determine when it is a good time, but it is not he who determines when it is a good time, it is the society that says when is a good time, and here we are, women say that they owe us this much, that we want it since our rights are guaranteed,”
said another of the spokespersons, Heidy Valencia.
While decisions are made from the political point of view, organizations also bet on mass mobilizations, forums, campaigns, and other methods to demystify abortion, to talk about social consequences, public health problems and “truths” on this topic.