Minnesota Right to Know Brochure Now Includes Abortion-Breast Cancer Link
by Maria Gallagher
LifeNews.com Staff Writer
October 8, 2003
St. Paul, MN (LifeNews.com) — A brochure produced by the state that abortion facilities are required to provide to women considering abortions now includes more accurate information about the link between abortion and breast cancer and the pain unborn children feel during an abortion.
However, abortion advocates are complaining that state officials in Minnesota are caving in to pro-life interests with the latest state publication. State health officials insist they are just trying to make the presentation of abortion research more accurate.
The informational pamphlet, required by the state’s new pro-life Women’s Right to Know Act, states that studies are mixed on whether there is a link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.
An earlier version of the pamphlet said that, while early studies had shown an abortion-breast cancer link, "newer studies have consistently shown no association between" abortion and breast cancer. Health officials also changed a section on fetal pain, saying that some experts have concluded that unborn children do feel pain at 20 weeks.
Minnesota Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach said the changes were made
to give pregnant women more accurate and complete information, not as a
result of abortion politics. Mandernach told the Associated Press, "We’re
not into — I’m not into — taking a position one way or another."
Meanwhile, the pro-abortion lobby claims the changes were politically-motivated and calculated to discourage women from having abortions.
"I’d say it is a triumph of ideology over scientific evidence," Tim Stanley, executive director of the Minnesota NARAL, a pro-abortion lobbying group, told the AP.
Under Minnesota’s Women’s Right to Know Act, women must receive information
about the risks of, and alternatives to, abortion at least 24 hours before having an abortion. The law requires that information be given on a number of specific topics, and similar laws in other states have proven effective in reducing the number of abortions y as much as 30 percent.
"The Department of Health has lived up to the letter and the spirit of the Women’s Right to Know law as they were charged to do by the MN State Legislature," said Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.
"Finally, women will be given medically accurate and scientifically correct information concerning the risks and alternatives to abortion. From 1973 until 2003 women were not empowered with all of the information they needed to make an informed decision regarding abortion — now they will be," Fischbach added.
Related web sites:
Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life – https://www.mccl.org
