Dear Colleague:
How much longer will scientists and the media be able to discount the
connection between abortion and breast cancer as groups of post-abortive
women and lawsuits proliferate?
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
9 June 2005
Vol. 7 / No. 22
An Unspeakable Health Threat
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
With receding interest in living individual lives of metaphysical and
moral goodness has come increased interest in living physically healthy
lives. An endless stream of scientific reports provide bases for an even
larger stream of media reports about what is healthy and what is not.
Many observers have commented on the obsession with health risks that
seems pervasive in contemporary media and society. Yet, almost like
unpersons in some Communist dystopia, some documented health risks do not
receive media coverage or much attention from doctors, and have not
penetrated the average American's psyche.
Among these unrisks are those from abortion. It should surprise no one
that such a shock to a woman's system as the artificial termination of a
pregnancy--a process that so much of her body is designed to nurture--can
have serious risks of negative side effects, especially when so many
abortions are performed via deeply invasive surgical procedures. There
are several common negative consequences of abortion (aside from
psychological ones), and Dr. Joel Brind, Ph.D., has recently written
another article explaining the connection between abortion and one of the
most grievous and increasingly frequent: breast cancer.
In the Summer 2005 issue of the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly,
Brind writes in "The Abortion-Breast Cancer Connection" that "despite the
worst efforts of scientists, doctors, politicians, journalists, and judges
to quash public knowledge of the ABC link, the fact that published
evidence of it abounds would make it a daunting task to convince a jury of
its nonexistence, given a well-presented case. Along these lines, two
recent medical malpractice cases give cause for optimism. Both were filed
by young women against abortion providers for failure to warn about the
risk of breast cancer and psychological complications." One of these
cases was settled, and in the other, the abortion clinic pleaded no
contest-even though neither woman had breast cancer. Their failure to
include breast cancer and psychological distress among the possible side
effects of abortion was enough to convince these clinics to compromise.
Brind examines the studies over the past 50 years that show an ABC link
and those that purportedly do not. The ABC link was first shown
scientifically a half-century ago and confirmed by other studies since
then, including one that the scientific establishment could not ignore.
"The Daling study could hardly avoid a high profile, as it was published
in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI)," says Brind, a
professor of biology and endocrinology. "The Daling team's overall
finding was of a statistically significant, 50% increase in the risk of
breast cancer among women who had chosen abortion. Even the New York
Times carried the story with the headline 'New Study Links Abortions and
Increase in Breast Cancer Risk.'" Other studies have found an increased
risk of 30%.
That kind of increased health risk is generally considered major. And
it's even more for certain easily identifiable sub-groups of women. "The
risk was far more-more than a 100% increase-for women who had an abortion
prior to age 18 or after age 30," says Brind about the Daling study. "The
risk was also compounded for women who had any family history of breast
cancer-even a grandmother or aunt. . . . As for women with the three risk
factors combined, that is, abortion before age 18 with a positive family
history of breast cancer, the relative risk was actually reported as
infinite. It should be admitted that this last statistic was based on
only 12 women; i.e., all 12 women who had such a reproductive and family
history were found among the 845 breast cancer patients and none of them
were found among the 961 healthy control women to whom they were
compared."
Groups of post-abortive women such as Silent No More are speaking out,
even if the media aren't listening. "A careful study of international
literature indicates a strong correlation between abortion and breast
cancer, yet abortion advocates deny these findings," writes Georgette
Forney on Silent No More's website. "Much like tobacco companies in the
past denied that cigarettes endanger the health of smokers, abortion
advocates ignore research that indicates abortion increases a woman's risk
for breast cancer."
Brind examines those studies that purport to disprove the ABC link,
showing why they do no such thing. And he explains the mechanism by which
induced abortion can trigger breast cancer. It is the abnormal
interruption of a first pregnancy that is particularly risky, because the
transformation of cells in the breasts from non-milk-producing to
milk-producing is interrupted. "The completion of a full-term pregnancy
provides some level of permanent protection against breast cancer, because
it leaves a woman with fewer vulnerable, undifferentiated cells which can
give rise to cancer. . .," Brind explains. "The breast cell situation
with induced abortion is that not only are the cells not yet
differentiated, but because of the growth stimulation of pregnancy
hormones--mainly estradiol--during the incomplete pregnancy, there are
more of those cancer-vulnerable cells in the breasts than were there at
the start of the pregnancy. Consequently, most epidemiological studies
have shown higher risks in women who have had an induced abortion than in
those who had not become pregnant at all."
When a miscarriage takes place, says Brind, the hormonal situation in a
woman's body is typically different, preventing an increase in risk of
breast cancer.
Currently, major health organizations including the National Cancer
Institute dismiss the ABC link. "The U.S. National Cancer Institute
should be criminally investigated," says Karen Malec, president of the
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer.
The ABC link is not the only health concern about abortion. "Even as
politically correct studies have been promulgated to neutralize the data
proving the ABC link, even stronger data has emerged in recent years that
firmly links abortion to premature births in subsequent pregnancies (which
in turn raise the risk of breast cancer in the mother and cerebral palsy
in the prematurely-born children), and to suicide and other forms of
premature death in women," Brind notes.
As those two lawsuits and the rise of groups such as the Coalition on
Abortion/Breast Cancer and Silent No More indicate, the dam is beginning
to break on the threats to women from abortion.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at PRI.
To order a video on the "ABC Link" featuring Dr. Joel Brind and Dr. Angela
Lanfranchi, contact PRI at www.pop.org or (540)
622-5240 ext. 205.
Silent No More's web address is
www.silentnomoreawareness.org.
A copy of Dr. Brind's article can be found at
http://www.AbortionBreastCancer.com/Brind_NCBQ.PDF.
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Email: jad@pop.org
Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
(540) 622-5240, ext. 204
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