Woman Wins Abortion-Breast Cancer Info Lawsuit Against Facility 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 27, 2005
Portland, OR (LifeNews.com) — For the first time, a woman has won a court case in a lawsuit saying that an abortion business failed to inform her of the link between abortion and breast cancer. The lawsuit is only the second to be successfully prosecuted and the first to obtain a judgment.
The 19 year-old woman filed suit against the Portland-based All Women’s Health Services abortion facility.
She had an abortion there in May 2001 when she was 15, but was not told of the psychological risks or that the abortion procedure has significantly high breast cancer risks for teenagers.
The woman has a family history of breast cancer, which, combined with the abortion, would have almost assuredly caused her to contract the disease later in life. She indicated the family medical history on an abortion facility intake form, but was still not told of the link.
Jonathan Clark, the woman’s attorney, told WorldNetDaily that the judgment "makes a pretty powerful statement about the science," showing that the abortion facility did not want to defend its stance against the research data confirming a link exists.
The abortion facility chose to settle the case out of court. The judge signed the agreement on January 24 and the amount of the judgment is confidential.
Clark indicated he was surprised the abortion facility didn’t try to defend itself in court.
"This case was set to be tried in Multnomah County, which is a very liberal county where folks are inclined to lean towards abortion," Clark said. "But in the trial setting, the science would have come under close scrutiny."
While conducting research for the case, Clark said he ran across dozens of media articles on the abortion-breast cancer link with biased headlines or content.
"As I read the studies, which we would have tried to bring into evidence [if there had been a trial], they often showed abortion does pose increased risk for breast cancer," Clark noted.
Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer was pleased by the result of the lawsuit.
"According to research in 1994 by Janet Daling and her colleagues at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, teenagers with a family history of the disease who procure abortions before age 18 have an incalculably high breast cancer risk," Malec explained.
"Abortions that occur before the birth of a first child are the most carcinogenic, a finding supported by biological and epidemiological evidence," she added.
