The Culture Around Sterilization and Therapeutic Abortion in Costa Rica

Abstract

In the present transcribed, edited and annotated talk, doctor and anthropologist María Carranza Maxera discusses the ideas about sterilization and therapeutic abortion among urban people from San José, a people for whom it would seem, at first sight, that the adjective “traditional” would not apply, as they have no perceived regional markers. The talk demonstrates that there is indeed an unexplained idiosyncrasy in this urban population, and what could seem at first sight to be a mere passive adherence to the religious mandate turns out, on closer inspection, to be a far more nuanced thinking which allows for a culture of sterilization.

M. Carranza Maxera is the author of the original talk. M. Ortega-Rodríguez and H. Solís-Sánchez were responsible for transcribing, translating, editing and annotating the talk, including the vignettes; their comments appear within square brackets.