Something American Women Need To Know

There is a website called Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. On that site is a page dealing with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) dealing with the relationship between abortion and breast cancer.

Here is an example of two of the questions and answers:

1. How many breast cancer risks are associated with abortion and what are those risks?

 Two breast cancer risks are associated with abortion.  All experts agree that increased childbearing, starting at a younger age, and increased duration of breastfeeding significantly reduce breast cancer risk. Cancer fundraising businesses recognize that the following factors raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer: 1) Childlessness; 2) Small family size; 3) Little or no breastfeeding; and 4) Having a late first full term pregnancy.

 There can be no question that abortion contributes to the breast cancer rates of all nations where the procedure is accessible.  Few experts, however, possess either the intellectual honesty or the political courage to acknowledge that abortion has anything to do with the loss of the protective effect – unless, of course, they are compelled to testify under oath.

 Even an expert witness for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Dr. Lynn Rosenberg of Boston Medical School, was compelled to agree with this medical fact while under oath: “A woman who finds herself pregnant at age 15 will have a higher breast cancer risk if she chooses to abort that pregnancy than if she carries the pregnancy to term, correct?”

Scientists debate only one of the breast cancer risks associated with abortion – the question of an independent link.  In other words, does an abortion leave a woman with more cancer vulnerable breast lobules than she had before she became pregnant?

2) How many medical organizations acknowledge that abortion is independently linked to breast cancer and what is the evidence that supports this effect?

 As of October, 2006, eight medical organizations acknowledge that abortion increases a woman’s risk in this way.  Most of the recent epidemiological research examines only the debated risk – the effect of the independent link.  Most of the recent research omits the effect of the first risk (the loss of the protective effect of childbearing) because it is already accepted as a well-established fact in the medical literature. 

 An overwhelming majority of the epidemiological studies support an independent link.  Seventy epidemiological studies dating from 1957 have been conducted, and approximately 80% report a correlation between having an abortion and increased breast cancer risk.  Animal research and considerable biological evidence also support a link. Even the most zealous opponents of the abortion-cancer link agree that the biological reasons for it are physiologically correct.  No scientist has ever refuted or even challenged the biological explanation.

 Considering the sheer extent of the evidence that has accumulated over the last half-century, why didn’t the cancer fundraising at least warn women about the existence of this research, as well as the fact that abortion would result in the loss of the protective effect of childbearing?

Shouldn’t this information be part of the discussion about women’s healthcare?

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