Almost three years after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that Costa Rica's ban on IVF was unlawful, the Costa Rican Government has attempted to legalise the fertility procedure – only for the measure to be suspended by the country's Supreme Court just two months after it was signed.

The IACHR ruled in 2012 that Costa Rica's ban on IVF, adopted 12 years previously in order to protect the right to life of embryos under its constitution, infringed the right to private and family life of those wanting to access IVF and ordered it to reinstate access to the fertility treatment. However, it wasn't until this September that President Luis Guillermo Solís signed a decree to legalise IVF, which is yet to come into force. 

The Tico Times reports that a group of lawmakers has asked the Supreme Court to throw out the decree, arguing that IVF can only be legalised through legislative action and not by presidential decree.

Another group, including the Center for Justice and International Law, the Doctors and Surgeons Association and the National Women's Institute, is petitioning the IACHR and has asked the Supreme Court to reject the challenge, the newspaper reports.

Pending a final decision on the matter, the Supreme Court ruled to temporarily suspend the reinstatement of IVF, and the Government has since delayed the introduction of a bill to regulate IVF, which would have supported the decree.

Reproduced from BioNews with permission, a web- and email-based source of news, information and comment on assisted reproduction and human genetics, published by Progress Educational Trust.