Abortion/Breast Cancer Study Flawed

Results of a study were released yesterday that found no link between abortion and breast cancer.

If the risk isn't there, then it isn't there. There remain many reasons why abortion is harmful not only to the unborn child who is killed, but the mother as well (increased risk of miscarriage, infertility, depression, substance abuse, suicide, etc.).

However, there is already a host of research that indicates a link between abortion and breast cancer, and this study is likely politically motivated. Why? There are many in the "scientific" community who will fight to preserve the "right" to abortion regardless of the harm it does to mother and child.

Some information about the study from CNS News:

The survey followed 105,716 women between 29 and 46 years of age from 1993 on, with updates collected every two years until the study was concluded in 2003. In the end, it said, "16,118 participants (15 percent) reported a history of induced abortion, and 21,753 (21 percent) reported a history of spontaneous abortions [miscarriages]."

One of the key problems with the study? With cancer, cause and effect usually don't follow in just a few short years.

One of the problems with the study was its lack of sufficient follow-up time, Malec said. She noted that participants who reported having an abortion in the later part of the decade-long research period wouldn't have had time to get breast cancer.

"If you start smoking cigarettes today, are you going to develop lung cancer next month? Will you get it in six months?" she asked. "It's going to take years before you develop lung cancer, if you're going to get it at all.

How do scientists believe the abortion/breast cancer link develops?

Proponents of a link between abortion and breast cancer risk say that upon conception, the level of estrogen in a woman's body increases dramatically. This results in the development of undifferentiated cells in the breast, which pose an additional cancer risk.

Late in the pregnancy, these cells become milk-producing cells, cease posing a greater cancer risk and in fact provide added protection against cancer.

If a woman has an abortion before that stage - and the vast majority of abortions would occur before then - her body is left with a high number of undifferentiated cells which increase the risk of her contracting breast cancer, they argue.

This isn't considered a factor with miscarriages, since most miscarriages occur due to insufficient estrogen, there isn't enough of the hormone to produce significant amounts of undifferentiated cells in the breast.

For more on the abortion/breast cancer link: here.