Paul Tuns:
On Feb. 1, Laura Fernández Delgado was elected president of Costa Rica with 1.191 million votes and 48.3 per cent of the vote in a 20-candidate field, to become the second female president of the Central American country. If she had not won 40 per cent of the vote, the two candidates with the most votes would have faced each in a runoff election.
Her primary opponent, Álvaro Ramos Chaves, won just over 825,000 or 33.4 per cent of the vote.
Fernández Delgado’s party, the Sovereign People’s Party (PPSO), founded in 2022 and contesting the presidential and legislative elections for the first time, won 31 seats in the 57 seat Legislative Assembly, a two-seat majority.
Fernández Delgado ran on a fiscally and morally conservative platform that included increasing penalties for illegal abortion, getting tough on crime, greater free trade, and closer relations with the state of Israel.
The right to life is guaranteed by article 21 of the Costa Rican constitution which states, “The human life is inviolable.” Yet under Costa Rican law, abortion is allowed in cases to preserve the life of the mother, and until last October, when a mother’s health was in danger. Costa Rican Penal Code’s article 93 permits judges to pardon a woman who causes her own abortion in cases of rape, and articles 118 through 122 set out different punishments ranging from three months to ten years for abortions committed under different circumstances and the gestational age of the preborn child. Physicians who suspect female patients of having had an abortion are obligated to report them to the Organization of Judicial Investigation.
In 2022, then-president Rodrigo Chaves Robles struck a commission to examine the country’s abortion law; in June of that year, the commission issued its report that there was no need to alter the law or lessen protections for preborn children. Since then, Chaves Robles strengthened legal protection for the preborn by prohibiting abortion to preserve the health of the mother except in cases to save the life of the mother.
Fernández Delgado, a former Minister of Planning and chief of staff to the outgoing president, has vowed to increase the maximum prison sentence for women who procure abortions from three to six years and repeatedly talked about the protection of the preborn as a central component of her political vision. On the campaign trail she said, “Defending the lives of Costa Ricans who have yet to be born is an obligation of the state.”
She is on record describing abortion as “nothing other than murder” and has backed several legislative efforts to increase penalties for illegal abortions. She ran on a platform that called for increasing prison sentences for those who commit abortion without a woman’s consent to 12 years.
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