http://www.lifenetwork.org.au/_blog/Abortion_in_Australia/post/Breast_cancer_and_abortion/
My feeling is that it is rubbish but I want to be able to present evidence and so I need your help. (and yes I know it’ll be like hitting my head against a wall but just knowing I have the facts will make me feel better)
Well, not knowing if the studies were solid (or even really done), it’s hard to refute that. IF I take the explanation in the blog as accurate and assume that these studies are legit…so what? We’re talking an increase in risk that’s not really an increase. Certainly we know that having live births *decreases *the risk of breast cancer, and breastfeeding may reduce that risk even further. But, following the logic on the changes to the breast lobules during pregnancy, the woman seeking an abortion should have the same breast cancer risk as a never-pregnant woman. It’s rather switching the goalposts to call that in “increased risk” of breast cancer.
To sum up (again, assuming the studies and the explanation are correct, just for the sake of discussion), women who have never given birth or carried a pregnancy past 32 weeks are at a higher risk of breast cancer than a woman who has carried a pregnancy to term. Well, duh. We knew that already. The abortion isn’t *increasing *the risk, it’s simply maintaining the risk that nulliparous women already have.
Breast Cancer: Symptoms, Risk Factors, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention Here is a refutation from Webmd through Fox News.
Some links from the other side:
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/medicalgroups/index.htm
Dr Joel Brind: Abortion-Breast Cancer Link
An Abortion / Breast Cancer Victim
bortionbreastcancer.com Commercial 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2KrbM5x2kk&feature=related
Give An Abortion For Christmas From Planned Parenthood & Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
I (for the first time) feel really good after reading **some **of the comments on youtube (some of course made me want to puke)
The “debate” about an alleged abortion-breast cancer connection has been going on for decades. Most studies have shown no link or even a slight protective effect of having an abortion. Anti-abortion rights activists have cherry-picked the minority of studies indicating a connection and ignored all the evidence against it.
gonzomax’s linked article describes a comprehensive review of studies to date that finds no connection between having an abortion and increased risk of breast cancer; in fact there is a possible small decreased risk. The article also describes conclusions by an international scientific panel convened by the National Cancer Institute, and position statements by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Cancer Society, all of which have stated there is no link between having an abortion and increased breast cancer risk.
You’d think all of this would be conclusive.
However, to a substantial number of anti-abortion rights activists accepting the truth takes a back seat to the opportunity to scare some women out of having abortions. They’ll use any tool at hand.
It’s similar to the tactics used by anti-vaccine activists.
These people are not reachable. Where the facts will be useful is in convincing people who still have critical thinking capacity and are sitting on the fence on these “issues”.
I have been given some more
This one apparently has the “science” of why it causes cancer
bortion Breast Cancer Link
They scared women into removing implants a few years ago. I try to ignore new ideas until they are proven. Women should take it easy . When you have so many cites on both sides, the truth is not clear. I suspect this so called connection will fade after it is no longer politically useful.
The folks (my friends) who I am reaching out to at the moment are not abortion activists and do have critical thinking capacity. They are however sitting on the fence. I am hoping to get myself and my friends some clear factual information and ammo to use (not that I expect to win too many arguments but it is nice to have the occasional self righteous glow)
Hmmm I would really like some peer reveiws of Dr Joel Brind work (He the apparent big gun in the abortion=cancer movement)
So does the human body “know” how to differentiate between a medical induced abortion and a naturally induced abortion, aka, a miscarriage? Are there different breast cancer rates?
Can anyone help me fact check this stuff:
* 13 out of 14 studies 14 since 1957-show more breast cancer among American women who chose abortion (27 of 33 studies worldwide ).
* The only study of American women which relied entirely of medical records of abortion (not interviews after the fact) reported a 90% increased risk of breast cancer among women who had chosen abortion .
* Even Planned Parenthood's own expert admits that a young woman who aborts her first pregnancy is more likely to get breast cancer later on, than a young woman who carries her first pregnancy to term .
* A woman who is pregnant when diagnosed with breast cancer or who gets pregnant after breast cancer is much more likely to be cured if she has the baby, instead of an abortion 35.
* The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has acknowledged the finding of the 1996 "Comprehensive review and meta-analysis" by Dr. Joel Brind et al. : a significant, 30% average increased risk with abortion. The Guideline reads: "the Brind paper had no major methodological shortcomings and could not be disregarded."
State that you will neither give nor accept YouTube links as evidence. The cite needs to be in print, in a reputable medical journal. The cite can’t be a blog, either, unless it’s an MD that’s blogging. This will eliminate about 99.5S% of the fake science.
Again, all of these are comparing women who have had an abortion to women who have given birth, not to women who have never been pregnant. Useless comparison.
Abortion doesn’t increase the risk of cancer, having babies decreases the risk of breast cancer.
To quote wikipedia
I always ask the person making the statement “How come no such study has been published in any journal of onocology?” The usual (stupid) answer is “Because all doctors are pro-abortion.”
What if a woman had an abortion and then later had a kid? Or if she had a kid then later had an abortion? (I mean aborting a second kid, not “aborting” the one she gave birth to… Although I guess by the time it would get to be a teenager she might want to kill it.)
Seems to me the ideal comparison would be women who’ve had abortions to women who’ve had miscarriages - with the same number of live births / duration of breastfeeding in addition to the abortion/miscarriage. It’s got to be quite tough to find the exact study set to compare, of course.
So two women who had 3 subsequent pregnancies, and breastfed each child for 6 months, after one had an abortion and one had a miscarriage. Oh, and they should be at similar ages for each pregnancy.
I can refute this:
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has acknowledged the finding of the 1996 “Comprehensive review and meta-analysis” by Dr. Joel Brind et al. : a significant, 30% average increased risk with abortion. The Guideline reads: “the Brind paper had no major methodological shortcomings and could not be disregarded.”
The cite was:
Evidence-based Guideline #7 (2000) RCOG Press, pp.29-30
The RCOG has since updated (no shit Sherlock- that was 10 years ago) their position:
“it is not helpful to women to raise anxieties about putative associations between abortion and breast cancer, when the evidence now overwhelmingly points to there being no increased risk.”
Cite:
http://www.rcog.org.uk/news/rcog-statement-abortion-and-breast-cancer
The BCP is being disingenous, to say the least, by keeping that quote from the RCOG in their literature when the College itself no longer takes that position.
This is obviously incorrect as to number of studies and their conclusions. A PubMed scientific article database search (using the terms abortion breast cancer risk) turns up 302 papers on the subject just going back to 1973. And as we’ve seen, a recent comprehensive review of studies on this subject found no abortion-breast cancer connection and even a possible small protective effect of having had an abortion.
As for Dr. Brind, he is very free with accusations that his colleagues are conducting “politically correct” science since they dare to disagree with him. He appears to have an agenda*. Too bad the evidence is not on his side.
*Lo and behold: “Dr. Joel Brind is a pro-life born again Christian, scientist, and a leading advocate of the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis. He is a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College and critiques abortion-breast cancer studies…Brind has worked as a consultant and expert witness for pro-life groups like Christ’s Bride Ministries, and has fought against the legalization of RU-486 testifying at a federal hearing that “thousands upon thousands” of women would develop breast cancer as a result of using the drug.”
There has been an increase in abortions since abortion was made legal.
There has been an increase in the detection of cancer since:
Talking about breasts came out of the closet.
Taslking about cancer came out of the closet.
Better means of detection, including elf-exams and medical machines, became used.
Sounds like apples & oranges to me.
WhyNot has the right take on it. I remember a “Games” magazine fake ad for a moonlight collector, where someone could irradiate water with moonlight. Plants watered with moonlight-strengthened water, the ad pointed out, grew six times faster than plants that got no water at all.
As a moment’s thought will make clear, that’s a ludicrous comparison. You should compare plants that got moonlight water to plants that got ordinary water.
Here, the original author is suggesting we should conclude abortion is harmful because women that get abortions have higher risk of breast cancer than women who carry babies to term and deliver. But that, too, is ludicrous. The correct comparison should be to women that haven’t given birth, period.
And that comparison would show, I’m certain, no real difference.
I believe that using garbage to advance your cause is suspect. I am pro-life, but this argument is crap.