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The debate over abortion, a focus of incessant controversy in the Americas, is heating up north and south as the region faces the election of a new U.S. president, a ruling by the highest U.S. court and the risk of the Zika virus in dozens of nations. Abortion plays a role in every U.S. election and this one, to choose a successor to President Barack Obama in November, is no exception. (Wulfhorst, 5/23)

As a Supreme Court decision on abortion rights is highly anticipated in the United States, few are as uniquely positioned to assess its impact as reproductive rights attorney Kathryn Kolbert, who argued the last major abortion case before the high court. In that 1992 challenge, the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion survived, but the Supreme Court allowed for such state regulations as waiting periods. The decision was written by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, who have retired, and Justice Anthony Kennedy. (Wulfhorst, 5/23)

Across the nation, abortion-rights activists are closely following Monday’s appeals court hearing involving an Indiana woman convicted of killing the premature infant she delivered after ingesting abortion-inducing drugs. Lawyers for 35-year-old Purvi Patel will ask the Indiana Court of Appeals court to throw out the convictions that led to her 20-year prison sentence. Patel’s case is one of more than a dozen recent cases cited by abortion-rights supporters in which women were arrested or convicted in connection with self-induced abortion. The issue is a volatile one, in part because many anti-abortion leaders say they do not favor prosecutions of women for their own abortions, even as they urge crackdowns on doctors who provide them. (Crary, 5/23)