Latin America has long been a bastion of Roman Catholicism, but recent polls suggest that people there are moving closer to the northern neighbors regarding contraception - namely, that it is justified to use it.

Stephen Bates writes in The Guardian:

The polls, released at an inter-governmental health conference in Puerto Rico, show at least three quarters of those questioned in Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia supporting contraception being made available to adolescents and even higher majorities in favour of the use of condoms to prevent HIV/Aids. ... Although in each case those questioned supported the church's humanitarian and spiritual roles, they also wanted liberalisation of its policies and claimed that using contraception did not prevent them from being good Catholics.

Only over the issue of whether hospitals should offer emergency contraception to women to prevent pregnancy were there fewer than three-quarters or four-fifths of respondents in favour, and even on that question the lowest level of support, in Bolivia, still registered 58%.

Those numbers keep creeping closer to those of Catholics in America where there is little difference between Catholics and Protestants over the use of contraception. If even conservatively Catholic Latin America can become relatively liberal with regards to the use of birth control, then there may be little hope for the Vatican‘s policies over the long term.

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