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
Anti-clericalism in Latin America Anti-clericalism in Latin America Anti-clericalism in Latin America sprang up in opposition to the power and influence of the Catholic Church in colonial and post-colonial Latin America. Of the population of Latin America, now well in excess of 300 million, over 90% acknowledge allegiance to the Catholic Church. Consequently, over a third of the world's Catholics inhabit the ‘Latin’ countries of South, Central and North America. For most of the history of post-colonial Latin America, religious rights have been regularly violated, and even now, tensions and conflict in the area of religion remain. Religious human rights, in the sense of