Fargo, ND — Withholding information on a link between abortion and breast cancer is medical malpractice, according to attorney John Kindley.
Kindley argued March 25 in Cass County District Court that Fargo, North Dakota's abortion facility has a legal liability to inform women of the link between abortion and breast cancer.
The Red River Women's Clinic abortion facility maintains that a definitive link has not been established and that information contained in its brochure is not misleading to women.
Pro-life advocate Amy Jo Kjolsrud has filed a false advertising lawsuit against the abortion business for information contained in the brochures.
The trial in front of Judge Michael McGuire began March 25. It originally opened Sept. 11 but was postponed after the terrorist attacks that day. Kjolsrud, whose maiden name is Amy Jo Mattson, filed the suit in 1999 on behalf of the general public, as allowed by North Dakota law. Kjolsrud, a former Fargo resident, now lives in Fort Polk, La., with her husband.
The Red River Women's Clinic brochures state that a substantial body of medical research indicates that there is no established link between breast cancer and abortion. The brochures quote a 1996 National Cancer Institute fact sheet in saying there is no evidence of a direct relationship between breast cancer and induced or spontaneous abortion.
“My feeling was I had to rely on the experts I trusted,” said Jane Bovard, administrator of the Red River Women's Clinic. “[Pro-life advocates] were beginning to say things to the patients. We put it there as a reassurance.”
But Kindley argues that the information is misleading, since 28 of 37 independent studies show there is a relatively increased risk of breast cancer in women who have abortions.
In the suit, Kjolsrud says the abortion facility should be required to disclose two facts to women considering abortion: having a full-term pregnancy before age 30 is protection against breast cancer in later life; and most studies show that having an abortion at any age increases the risk of breast cancer later in life.
Joel Brind, a professor at the City University of New York and expert witness for the plaintiff, testified to these scientific statements.
Brind said a link between abortion and breast cancer is explained by the hormonal disruption that occurs when a woman's pregnancy is aborted.
Estrogen causes a proliferation of cells in the breast during the first two trimesters of pregnancy, Brind said. In the third trimester, however, the cells differentiate into milk-producing cells, which are less vulnerable to carcinogens, he said.
“Abortion robs a woman of the natural protection against breast cancer that a full-term pregnancy provides,” Brind added.
But Linda Rosenthal, lead counsel for the defense and attorney for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, pointed out that the average age women get married in North Dakota is 26.
And since a full-term pregnancy before age 30 is protection against developing breast cancer, Rosenthal asked Brind if he thinks the North Dakota Department of Health should encourage pre-marital sex or having a child outside of marriage to protect against breast cancer. Brind said no.
Rosenthal also pointed out that nuns are at higher risk for developing breast cancer. Should doctors inform women considering becoming nuns that there's a higher risk of breast cancer, Rosenthal asked. Again, Brind said no.
In his rebuttal, Kindley said it's unlikely that a woman would become pregnant only to reduce her chances of developing breast cancer. On the contrary, this could be the deciding factor for a woman already pregnant and considering abortion, he said.
The first day of the trial focused on establishing the link between breast cancer and abortion through Brind's testimony.
However, in questioning Brind's credentials, she noted that he has been fired from Beth Israel Medical Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center, both in New York. Brind, who held unpaid positions at both institutions, said the disassociations occurred after he wrote an article for an English publication on the abortion/breast-cancer link.
The United Kingdom's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released guidelines in March of 2000, to its abortion businesses cautioning them that ABC link research “cannot be disregarded.” The group also examined a 1996 review of the worldwide studies done by Brind, saying the doctor's work was “carefully conducted” and “had no major methodological shortcomings.”
The Red River Women's Clinic plans to call an expert witness to testify on its behalf.
The abortion facility originally responded to the lawsuit by altering the language of the brochure, taking out all of the wording about breast cancer and adding the following statement: “It is 10-12 times more life threatening to give birth than it is to have an abortion in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.” Then in early January 2000, the wording changed again, deleting “10 – 12 times more life threatening” and added three sentences concerning abortion and breast cancer:
“Some anti-abortion activists claim that having an abortion increases the risk of developing breast cancer. A substantial body of medical research indicates that there is no established link between abortion and breast cancer. In fact, the National Cancer Institute has stated, '[t]here is no evidence of a direct relationship between breast cancer and either induced or spontaneous abortion.'”
The quotation attributed to the National Cancer Institute was taken from a 1996 NCI “fact sheet on “Abortion and Breast Cancer.” But the NCI had revised its “fact sheet” at least twice since the 1996 version, prior to the clinic's use of the statement in early 2000. Specifically, the 1999 revised NCI fact sheet states that the “evidence of a direct relationship … is inconsistent.”
The suit says the continued use of the claim “there is no evidence” by the clinic amounts to false advertising, as do the statements “abortion is safer than childbirth” and “it is 10 -12 times more life-threatening to give birth than it is to have an abortion in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy” that the clinic administrator regularly makes to women considering abortion, according to the plaintiff's deposition.
This is the first trial of its kind in terms of establishing a legal duty for abortion providers and could set a significant precedent, Kindley said.
“We've established very clearly that there's a controversy,” said Kindley, of South Bend, Ind. “We're bringing a scientific issue into the legal context.”
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
