by Pat Centner
(AgapePress) – Two groundbreaking lawsuits are bringing attention to the possible link between abortion and breast cancer.
In New Jersey, an abortion clinic doctor is sued by a 19-year-old woman who had an abortion two years ago. In North Dakota, an abortion clinic is sued by an abortion protester. In the first case, the plaintiff says the doctor gave her no warning of the increased risk of breast cancer when she got an abortion. The North Dakota plaintiff sued because she says the literature furnished by the abortion clinic did not include a warning about breast cancer risk.
These two lawsuits, believed to be the first of their kind, focus attention on a debate that has been raging for more than 20 years: Is there a link between abortion and breast cancer? And, if so, shouldn't potential abortion patients in every state be warned of that possibility?
According to USA Today, some studies suggest abortion increases breast cancer risk, while others say it doesn't.
Those who believe there is a link between the two cite data from a 1994 study led by Janet Daling of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. This study found, by comparing 845 breast cancer patients with 961 women without breast cancer, that women who had been pregnant at least once and had had at least one induced abortion were 50% more likely to develop breast cancer. Critics say that women with breast cancer are more willing to reveal they have had an abortion than are healthy women; thus, the higher percentage.
Mads Melbye of Denmark's Danish Epidemiology Science Center led a 1997 study of 1.5 million Danish women, 280,965 of whom had had at least one abortion, while 10,246 had breast cancer. Research scholars found, after accounting for known risk factors, that women who had an abortion were no more likely to develop breast cancer than those who had not. Critics of this study say it glosses over an increased cancer risk found among women who had abortions late in their pregnancy.
These mixed findings have caused medical groups like the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute to ultimately conclude that having an abortion does not have an effect on breast cancer risk.
But pro-life groups such as Americans United for Life believe that women should be informed even if only one study shows a connection. (And the majority of women studied who had had an abortion did reveal an association.) Karen Malec, president of the Coalition for Abortion/Breast Cancer in Palos Heights, Illinois, says the medical establishment, which has long held abortion to be safe, is trying to cover up the cancer link.
Currently, three states — Mississippi, Louisiana and Kansas — have “right to know” laws supporting the need for women to be warned of a possible link between abortion and breast cancer. Eleven more states have legislation pending that will require a similar warning. Montana has a law on the books, but it is enjoined. Thirty-five states are doing nothing to warn women of the possible connection.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
