Posted on 09/22/2005 5:36:00 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
Two leading women's magazines are misleading readers about the connection between abortion and breast cancer, an activist group contends.
Last month it was Glamour, said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, "This month, it's Redbook, and it's Redbook's second attempt to erase the link from the public mind."
Redbook's October issue includes an interview with Marissa Weiss, M.D., founder of the cancer fundraising business, breastcancer.org.
Weiss said, "Two recent research reviews have found that abortion doesn't alter hormone levels in a way that could increase breast cancer risk, as some activists have claimed."
Prof. Joel Brind of Baruch College called Weiss' statement "sheer nonsense."
Scientists agree that a woman who has an abortion has a greater risk than one who has a baby, he asserted.
The third trimester process protects a woman from estrogen overexposure and matures her breast tissue into cancer resistant tissue, Brind explained. Scientists debate whether her risk is greater than what it would have been if she'd never had that pregnancy, he pointed out.
"I do not know of any reviews – recent or otherwise – which have ever made such a ridiculous claim," Brind said. "Of course abortion alters hormone levels in a way that could increase breast cancer risk – it terminates the pregnancy!"
It is indisputable, Brind says, that an abortion terminates all the hormonal changes that occur with pregnancy, including those which cause breast maturation and decrease breast cancer risk.
"What is in dispute is whether or not the changes induced by the pregnancy up until the time of abortion, i.e., the stimulation of rapid growth of breast tissue, is strong enough and long-lasting enough to increase the risk of breast cancer beyond what it would have been in the absence of pregnancy at all," he said. "The overwhelming majority of valid epidemiological evidence says it does."
Angela Lanfranchi, M.D., associate professor of surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center, agreed that Weiss' statement revealed a misunderstanding of the biological reason for the link.
Weiss denied that contraceptive pills increase risk, but the World Health Organization acknowledged that combined oral contraceptives are "carcinogenic to humans."
These findings support an abortion-breast cancer, or ABC, link, Lanfranchi said.
"Any doctor that denies the ABC link is either lying or is uninformed," Malec said. "These repeated attempts to mislead women about the research are despicable. The individuals who've participated in this cover-up are directly responsible for cancer deaths."
The type of woman that would have an abortion probably isn't overly concerned with her health, just her lifestyle.
Ping!
I wonder if this also explains the chills I get from the breast cancer activists with their pink ribbons.
Everytime I hear about the "Susan Komen Foundation" and their ilk, I get just a bad vibe. Almost as if they know about the ABC link and are trying to cover it up by engendering as much sympathy for the victims as possible. Could you imagine the fallout if the ABC hypothesis was accepted? No more funding, along with a pretty substantial attack on their golden idol of abortion.
I guess an easy way to see if my hypothesis has credence is to find out if there are any pro-life chicks on any of these founcations. Anyone around here know?
It says a lot about a group that gets so passionate about wanting to kill babies....I really do not understand it....I am also amazed at people that call themselves Christians and say "I would never have one myself but it is not my place to tell a women what to do with her body." I know that their is no rejoicing in heaven when another baby is sucked down the drain.
I feel the same way and I lost a sister to breast cancer. Those pink ribbons drive me crazy!!
I refuse to have a mamogram every year. It's all about money.
I have a friend who had a complete hysterectomy ten years ago. She still gets an annual pap smear. But why? That test is for cervical cancer and she doesn't even have a cervix anymore. She asked her doctor that question and she was told that she still needed to get it. I think they are robbing the insurance companies.
Maybe this is a stupid question, but wouldn't miscarriage have the same breast cancer-raising effects as abortion?
It's a good quesion, but I think it comes down to nature looking after things.
Miscarriages are, by design, products of nature. Abortions are anything but.
Mother Nature has a way of hitting back at those who snub her.
No. First define miscarriage and it's root cause (fetal death or incompetent cervix, disease, etc). Most miscarriages involve pre-mature labor and the same hormonal changes that a full term labor would entail.
A miscarriage is not at all similar to an invasive and violent mechanical assault on a normal and healthy fetus in a normal and healthy womb.
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