Abortion Definitely Increases Breast Cancer Risk, Researcher Tells NRLC Convention

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 14, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion Definitely Increases Breast Cancer Risk, Researcher Tells NRLC Convention Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 14
, 2007

Kansas City, KS (LifeNews.com) — When you’re a leader in the abortion industry and you generate hundreds of millions of dollars from selling abortions to women, the last thing you want to acknowledge is that abortion leads to breast cancer. And that’s the problem Dr. Joel Brind described in a talk at the 35th annual National Right to Life convention.

After 50 years of research showing a link between abortion and breast cancer and Brind, a professor at Baruch College in New York, says there now is "at least as much evidence of the cover-up [of the link]as there is for the link itself."

Brind said the first study showing the abortion-breast cancer link was published in Japan in 1957 and it showed that women who have abortions have two-three times greater a chance of contracting breast cancer than those who decide to keep their baby.

Dr. Janet Daling, who considers herself pro-abortion, brought the abortion-breast cancer link into the mainstream when her 1994 research found that among women who had been pregnant at least once experienced a 50 percent increase in breast cancer risk when having an included abortion.

Other subgroups found that women who had a family history of breast cancer experienced an 80 percent increased risk when having an abortion and teenagers saw their risk doubled if having an abortion before the age of 18 — with all teens with a family history and an abortion getting breast cancer.

The later statistic should be considered a big public health issue because 30,000-50,000 teenagers every year with a family history of breast cancer have an abortion and all of them are likely contracting breast cancer in later years as a result.

A second part of the abortion-breast cancer link that Brind says is not contested by most researchers is that carrying a pregnancy to term results in the reduction of the breast cancer risk.

Because most breast cancers start in Type 1 and 2 lobules, units that organize breast tissue, and because induced abortions resulted in increased numbers of these lobules, abortion contributes to breast cancer. Conversely, breast cancers do not start in Type 3 ad 4 lobules and full-term pregnancies result increased numbers of Type 3 and 4 lobules, which shows a pregnancies helpfulness.

"Thus, if you have an abortion you’re left with more places that breast cancers can start and if you have a full-term pregnancy you have fewer," Brind told the audience.

Brind also talked about the increase in the hormone estrogen that accompanies a pregnancy.

He said that at the end of pregnancy breasts go through a differentiation that helps counteract the effects of the estrogen, but when an abortion occurs, breasts do not go through the process and women are left at greater risk of contracting breast cancer.

As a result of the overwhelming evidence showing the abortion-breast cancer link and research showing the protective effect a pregnancy has for women, Brind said women with an unplanned pregnancy should be told that their best decision is to have the baby rather than have an abortion.

"It is always better to have a child than no regency at all and it’s certainly more helpful to have a child than have an abortion," he said.