Reproductive rights in Latin America seen a steady increase of feminist abortion activists, despite religion making the issue taboo. Even when legislation has become more lenient (as has been the case recently with Mexico City and Chile), women often face institutional barriers to gaining access to abortions. When it comes to reporting data on abortions in Latin America, estimated abortion levels are often heterogeneous and highly variable due to legal frameworks and social stigmas. According to the World Health Organization, in 2008, approximately "4.2 million abortions were conducted in Latin America and the Caribbean, almost three-fourths of them in South America. Virtually all these procedures
Latin America–United States relations and for much of the Cold War (1947–1991), actively vied with the Soviet Union for influence in the Western Hemisphere. Today, the ties between the United States and most of Latin America (with the exception of certain countries such as Cuba and Venezuela) are generally cordial, but there remain areas of tension between the two sides. Latin America is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States and its fastest-growing trading partner, as well as the largest source of drugs and U.S. immigrants, both documented and otherwise, all of which underline the continually evolving relationship between the two.