Mar 7, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Costa Rica’s delegate to the UN said this weekend that contrary to the vast majority of delegations from Latin American countries, Costa Rica did speak out in support of life at the recent UN meeting on the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
The representative of Costa Rica said her country was “fully committed to promoting women’s rights” as “an indispensable element to achieving sustainable human development and in keeping with its obligation under the Women’s Convention.” She noted that all international commitments must be viewed in the context of human rights in Costa Rica and its “clear belief in the primacy and inviolability of the right to life.”
Therefore, in keeping with the reservations her country had submitted to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, she reaffirmed that “no reference to sexual or reproductive rights could be construed, under any circumstances whatsoever, as to include the possibility of having abortion.”
She said that “abortion is not a human right, since it goes against the principle of the inviolability of human life from the point of conception.”
The official document of the Commission should include her explanation of the Costa Rica position, she concluded.