Updated on Monday, October 24.

By Wendy Anders

Saturday morning Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) police arrested a 38-year-old Costa Rican woman by the last name of Morales for allegedly participating in an illegal abortion clinic in Desamparados, a densely populated southern San José district, in Costa Rica’s capital.

She is being held for breaking the physical integrity and trafficking law for providing women the means for terminating their pregnancies, said a police press statement.

After receiving a confidential tip-off, police investigated the clandestine clinic in a house on Fallas Street in Desamparados. According to police, women who wished to terminate their pregnancy were given an initial appointment for which they were charged 20,000 – 30,000 colones for an evaluation that included an ultrasound, and an explanation of options for aborting.

If the woman decided to go through with the abortion, at a second appointment she was given twelve pills to induce the abortion. For this, women could be charged up to 300,000 colones (about $550), said police investigators. If the pills didn’t work, women would be provided with a suction extraction.

The services were being announced through a website. According to police, Morales has a background in law, and no medical training, and she has apparently seen at least 30 women who were identified through her website, stated the OIJ in a press conference.

The latest abortion data for Costa Rica, from 2007, estimates that there are some 27,000 induced abortions each year, or about one abortion for every three live births, according to the Costa Rican Demographic Association, a non-profit reproductive advocacy and educational group.

Women who attempt to abort, even if they are victims of rape, or if their fetuses have a malformation that make them incompatible with life, as well as the health professionals who carry out the procedure can be punished under Articles 118 and 119 of the Penal Code.

The only exception is found in Article 121 of the Code, which allows for abortion to save a woman’s health or life. In practice this article has been employed only to save the life of the mother; and the restrictive interpretation of the concept of health in applying this article has ignored the impact of such pregnancies on the overall health of women, reported El Diario Extra, a Costa Rican tabloid paper, earlier this year.