Top 10 Costa Rica

Costa Rica Report Indicates Number of Illegal Abortions Supposedly Rising

A new report from the Costa Rica government indicates the number of illegal abortions there is supposedly on the rise. The Central American nation, like other predominantly Catholic and Hispanic nations in the region, is strongly pro-life and protects the right to life of unborn children.

The new Asociación Demográfica Costarricense (ADC) report indicates there are about 27,000 illegal abortions occurring in the country annually for women between the ages of 15 and 49.

That’s a rate of one abortion for every three lives births in the nation in 2007.

It has increased from a rate of 10.6 for every 1.000 women between the ages of 15 and 49 to 22.3 last year.

ADC official Cristian Gómez prepared the report and, according to the Inside Costa Rica web site, he said abortion presents a number of health risks for women.

He said the rise is due to a less frequent use of birth control and contraception and supposedly supports an effort to make some abortions legal.

While abortion advocates typically point to supposedly large numbers of women dying from illegal abortions as a reason to allow them, the ADC report indicates no women in Costa Rica have died from illegal abortions recently.

Costa Rica was in the news last year when abortion advocates used the case of a 9-year-old girl who became pregnant to try to promote the decriminalization of abortion internationally.