Court strikes ban on in-vitro process
A Costa Rican ban on in-vitro fertilization has been struck down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a decision that reproductive health groups said could lead to greater access to abortion and some contraception in other Latin American countries. The court said in a ruling late Thursday that a longstanding Costa Rican guarantee of protection for every human embryo violated the reproductive freedom of infertile couples because it prohibited them from using in-vitro fertilization, which often involves the disposal of embryos not implanted in a patient’s uterus