Posted on 08/29/2002 11:20:26 AM PDT by NYer
MOSCOW, August 28, 2002 (LSN.ca) - The Russian news agency PRAVDA online, a break-off online paper of the official (formerly communist) state-run paper, has criticized the American media for concealing the link between abortion and breast cancer. The publication carried a story by Carl Limbacher of NewsMax in which Limbacher makes the point that "thanks to intense pressure from the billion-dollar abortion industry (the ABC link) is a taboo subject for the liberal media establishment."
Citing numerous studies showing evidence for the link, the PRAVDA article warned, "Thousands of women could die because of the failure of the medical establishment and government to warn women of the link between abortion and breast cancer." RFMNEWS.com interviewed Karen Malec, spokesperson for the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, about Pravda's report. "Do American women have to read Pravda to learn the truth?," she asked.
YES! The American press and media are complicit in covering up the truth.
February 25, 2002
According to critics, the legal and journalistic arms of the abortion industry jumped on the disinformation bandwagon with the publication of a February 17, 2002, article in Women's E News authored by Margaret Woodbury entitled, "Judge to rule on abortion, breast cancer link." Funded by the NOW Legal Defense Fund and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, the Internet wire service reported, "Many researchers are troubled ... because the weight of current scientific evidence does not seem to support a link between breast cancer and abortion."
California obstetrician-gynecologist, Frank Joseph, MD, said in a letter to Women's E News, "After reading (the article), one would think studies done that showed abortions increase the risk of breast cancer were equal in amount to the studies that showed no increase. Come on -- at least be honest and give all the facts to your readers. After all, we are talking about life and death, or doesn't this concern you? Would you call 13 of 15 studies done in the United States, that showed the increase risk -- even? Of course not -- 13 to 2 is NOT even close to being equal. Also, 28 of 37 studies done worldwide, according to my math, is not close to being equal."
Citing a false advertising lawsuit filed against a Fargo, North Dakota abortion clinic, Woodbury reported that the plaintiff, Amy Jo Mattson, is seeking to compel the Red River Women's Clinic to stop distributing a pamphlet which asserts that most of the medical evidence does not support a link between abortion and the disease. The case is due to go to trial on March 25, 2002.
Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, an international women's organization, said, "Woodbury omitted a significant piece of information. When the lawsuit was filed in December 1999, the Red River Women's Clinic was distributing a pamphlet which said, 'Anti-abortion activists claim that having an abortion increases the risk of developing breast cancer and endangers future childbearing. None of these claims are supported by medical research or established medical organizations.' The clinic had provided its patients with a patently false statement and it was certainly in its financial interests to do so. By 1999, 26 out of 32 studies worldwide found elevated risk."
After the lawsuit was filed, the clinic seemed to abandon its effort to deny the existence of research implicating abortion. A revised pamphlet was printed using a 1996 fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) website. Its web page said, "Although it has been the subject of extensive research, there is no convincing evidence of a direct relationship between breast cancer and either induced or spontaneous abortion. Available data are inconsistent and inconclusive, with some studies indicating small elevations in risk, and others showing no risk associated with either induced or spontaneous abortions."
Mischief at the National Cancer Institute
Over the last few years, according to critics, the NCI has suffered a significant loss of credibility with respect to its evaluation of the research. In 1999, the NCI was accused by a scientist of having published "an outright lie" about the research on its website.
Joel Brind, Ph.D. a professor at Baruch College who with colleagues at Penn State had authored a 1996 review and meta-analysis for the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, reported the website falsely claimed, "The scientific rationale for an association between abortion and breast cancer is based on limited experimental data in rats and is not consistent with human data."
However, not only had more than two dozen studies been conducted on women in various parts of the world, which had associated abortion with breast cancer, but the NCI had at least partially funded most of the 13 studies conducted on American women by that year with all but one reporting risk elevation.
The agency's statement implied that the effect of miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) on breast cancer risk was much the same as that of induced abortion. The research, on the other hand, has demonstrated that most miscarriages do not increase breast cancer risk because these pregnancies do not generate enough estrogen to initiate the development of tumors.
Estrogen is thought to be the culprit associated with most of the risk factors for breast cancer. Breast cancer risk is augmented by overexposure to estrogen beginning early in pregnancy without the protective hormonal milieu taking place in the third trimester. Estrogen comes from progesterone, and miscarriages occur when there is not enough progesterone required to continue the pregnancy.
Physician-Congressmen Blow the Whistle on the NCI
The NCI was under fire from several members of Congress in 1998 and 1999, including two physicians, Congressmen Dave Weldon, MD and Tom Coburn, MD.
Rep. Coburn accused the agency of having misled the public about the research paid for by American taxpayers and had "selectively released data." Using particularly sharp words to describe the agency's misrepresentations, Coburn said the agency clearly had a "bias for lack of what the facts are." The NCI's web page, he declared, was "not scientifically driven, on this issue, but is more politically driven. ..."
Congressmen Coburn and Weldon denounced the NCI and attested that women "are still being kept in the dark -- or worse yet, knowingly given misinformation by government agencies charged with protecting their health." The physicians said that they were disturbed by the "anti-information position of the NCI with respect to this particular issue."
Congressmen Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Chris Smith (R-NJ), on the other hand, condemned the agency for having "sabotaged" research reporting a positive association between abortion and the disease. In particular, they cited research authored by a highly regarded epidemiologist, Janet Daling and her colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.
Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) in 1994, Daling, an abortion supporter, said "Among women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50% higher than among other women."
Dr. Lynn Rosenberg, an epidemiologist with the Boston University School of Medicine, penned an editorial published in that same issue of JNCI in which she disparaged the Daling study by raising the issue of possible recall bias (reporting bias), a theory unsupported by medical research which says that breast cancer patients are more likely to accurately report having had abortions than healthy women. The fact is Daling ran a separate test for recall bias and found no evidence of it at all in her study. Rosenberg opined that the study's findings were "far from conclusive, and it is difficult to see how they will be informative to the public."
National Cancer Institute Revises Web Page
The NCI amended its web page late in 1999 and removed the word "inconclusive." The high bar which had been established by the agency which demanded "convincing evidence of a direct relationship" was not included in its revised statement which said, "The relationship between abortion and breast cancer has been the subject of extensive research. However, evidence of a direct relationship between breast cancer and either induced or spontaneous abortion is inconsistent. Some studies have indicated small elevations in risk, while others have not shown any risk associated with either induced or spontaneous abortion."
The new web page was marked by the disappearance of what Dr. Brind called an "outright lie" from its web page, but now the data were described as "inconsistent." Some experts say the agency found it beneficial to continue to mislead women by treating induced and spontaneous abortions as if they had one in the same effect on breast cancer risk. It neglected to reveal the number of studies published since 1957 showing risk elevations. I
n an attempt to discredit its own research subsidized by American taxpayers, the NCI's statement asserted that "some studies" found "small elevations in risk." A close examination of the 1994 Daling study, however, reveals the truth. Daling found an incalculably high risk of breast cancer for teenagers with a family history of the disease who have abortions before the age of 18.
Among members of this age group without a family history, Daling determined the risk more than doubled. Altogether, seven epidemiological studies have reported a more than twofold elevation in risk.
Revised Red River Clinic Pamphlet Still Misleading
While discussing the new wording which appeared in the revised pamphlet distributed to patients at the Red River Women's Clinic, John Kindley, the plaintiff's attorney, said in a May 11, 2000, statement that "the supposedly non-existent evidence of a causal relationship between induced abortion and increased breast cancer risk is neither weak nor inconsistent. The NCI statement quoted by the Red River Women's Clinic is patently and obviously false, and the clinic knows it. A business can't repeat to its customers a falsehood about its services, just because the falsehood originally happened to be made by a government agency."
Significantly, the defense attorney for the clinic, Linda Rosenthal of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, told Woodbury the plaintiff and her supporters "lie about the science." However, in November of 1999, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy hired an expert witness to testify for abortion providers in a case involving Florida's parental notification law.
That expert witness was Dr. Lynn Rosenberg, whom Congressmen Hyde and Smith said "sabotaged" the Daling study in the JNCI. Rosenberg said she couldn't determine how Daling's findings would be relevant to women. When asked by the attorney for the state if, "A woman who finds herself pregnant at age 15 will have a higher breast cancer risk if she chooses to abort that pregnancy than if she carries the pregnancy to term," Rosenberg reversed her position and replied, "Probably, yes."
NCI Plans New Fact Sheet
Woodbury reported that the NCI is planning yet another version of its fact sheet on the abortion-breast cancer research. Patricia Hartge, an NCI epidemiologist, told her that "An examination of the scientific evidence makes it very clear the overall picture is no increased risk of breast cancer to women who have had abortions."
Some, who believe there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, have accused Hartge of participating in the agency's campaign to disparage the medical research in spite of the fact that most NCI and NCI-funded studies have supported a link. With the publication of the 1997 Melbye study in the New England Journal of Medicine, came another NCI editorial in that same issue.
Melbye's study was conducted on Danish women and funded by the Department of Defense. It was especially favored by the abortion industry, including Women's E News,[ because it found no overall link. The study was called "definitive" and its purpose was to discredit the Brind paper and all of the other studies reporting elevated risk.
Those who believe there is a link between abortion and breast cancer say Hartge did her job well, by pacifying American women who were nervously contemplating an abortion. She said, "In short, a woman need not worry about breast cancer when facing the difficult decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy."
What wasn't revealed was that Melbye found a statistically significant 89% elevated risk among women having abortions after 18 weeks gestation. Moreover, Melbye tallied records of breast cancer cases dating back to 1968 -- five years before tallying abortions.
In other words, Melbye counted the incidence of the disease reported over a five-year period before counting the proposed cause. Because abortion was legalized in 1939, not in 1973 as Melbye had thought, Melbye misclassified 60,000 women who had abortions as not having had abortions.
Recall Bias Theory Advanced to Cover-up Link
Karin Michels, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School, advanced the cause of recall bias on behalf of the abortion industry. She told Woodbury, "There is a very high chance women with breast cancer are more willing to soul search and more accurately report their abortion histories."
If there were such a phenomenon as recall bias in the abortion-breast cancer research, then the findings reported in the studies showing elevated risk would be artificial. A number of studies have been conducted to test for recall bias, but no scientists currently claim to have found convincing evidence of it.
In fact, Michels was a member of one of those scientific teams which found no evidence of recall bias. The case-control study by Lipworth et al. was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 1996 and found an increased risk of 50% among Greek women.
Lipworth observed that there was no social stigma associated with induced abortion among Greek women, and "even before legalization, induced abortions were practiced in Greece with widespread social acceptance." Lipworth concluded that recall bias could not, therefore, have skewed the results of the study. Lipworth said, "This can be interpreted as indicating that healthy women in Greece report reliably their history of induced abortion."
Exactly one week after submitting the article for publication on October 20, 1994, Michels told Dr. Lawrence Altman, a reporter for the New York Times, that the scientific method of interviewing women and asking about abortions "is a flaw in the design [of the studies] because women who have breast cancer are more likely to disclose an abortion than women who did not develop breast cancer."
Swedes Accused of Covering Up Link Woodbury asserted in her article that a Swedish study had found evidence of recall bias, but the Swedish scientists, who were the first to advance the theory of recall bias, came up with unexpected results when they tested for evidence of it. Funded by a family planning group, the Swedes found seven women who reported having had abortions which the computer said they had not.
Hence, the belief that a prospective study -- one based on medical records, not interviews -- is the gold standard for epidemiological research seemed to be shot down by some of its own proponents, and the Swedes have since withdrawn their claim of having found evidence of recall bias. In fact, the Brind-Penn State team of scientists had proven that the Swedish team had covered up a link in its study on Norwegian women, and made the accusation in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health in 1998. The Swedes have never responded.
Oxford Study
Another study which may have drawn favor from the abortion industry and its NCI supporters was a case-control record-linkage study authored by M.J. Goldacre et al. and published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health last year. Known as the Oxford study, this group used hospital medical records which had recorded information about its subjects.
There was a significant difficulty with the database, however. It contained 28,616 breast cancer cases, but only 300 recorded abortions in the hospital. That represents 1% of the cases. Since most abortions performed in Great Britain have taken place in clinics, not hospitals, and since the abortion rate in that country has been approximately 2.5% of women of childbearing age each year, most of the abortions in the database were not recorded and many women were improperly classified as not having had abortions.
Included among this study's authors, was D. Yeates who in a 1982 study by Vessi et al. participated in an effort at Oxford to debunk the first American study to report a link between abortion and breast cancer. Published in 1981 by the respected M.C. Pike and colleagues, the American study found a 140% elevated risk among women procuring an abortion before first full term pregnancy.
Vessi et al. responded with a study showing a 16% decreased risk for women having an abortion before term pregnancy and claimed that "The results are entirely reassuring" for women. Upon closer examination, however, it is revealed by the study's authors that "Only a handful of women stated they had a termination before their first term pregnancy. ..."
For this reason, according to Dr. Brind, "... This study is not 'entirely reassuring' with regard to the question of induced abortion in breast cancer; the study is entirely irrelevant, but they put it up as a reassuring study, to reassure the world that this finding, that abortion may be dangerous, really isn't true."
An Amazing Acknowledgment Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, acknowledged the importance of an early first full term pregnancy on a woman's breast cancer risk. She said, "We know that early pregnancy has a protective effect against breast cancer and this will need to be factored into future studies that compare women's risks."
When asked about Gandy's comment, Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer said, "If NOW recognizes the importance of early first full term pregnancy, then the logical question is: Will this organization, which claims to be 'for' women, stop promoting the postponement of childbirth among childless women through its advocacy of what it has euphemistically labeled 'reproductive rights?' "
Lancet Oncology Article Attempts to Discredit British Study Late last year, a British study by a group of independent statisticians, the Pension and Population Research Institute, published a study which reported that the incidence of breast cancer would double by 2023 due to induced abortion.
In an attempt to discredit the study, author Tim Davidson advanced recall bias theory as a difficulty with the research and claimed there was "no consistent and conclusive" proof of an association. He concluded, however, that "... more work is needed in specific areas where a stronger association might exist, such as in late second-trimester abortions, in very young patients, and in families with a genetic predisposition. ..."
The data concerning the abortion/breast cancer link is persuading to some, but not to others. Yet it seems apparent no attempts are being made by organized medicine to let women in these groups know that this is an area of concern for scientists.
"It's intriguing that Women's E News and NOW want to even talk about the abortion-breast cancer link," said Malec. "The abortion industry would prefer that this issue never came up and has been, for the most part, tightlipped about the research since the first study was published in 1957.
"It is only in recent years that the subject has been raised in the public forum and, when it has, the industry reacted like a possessed person who just had holy water sprinkled on himself. Now that the public is beginning to learn the truth, the industry wants to respond like Joe Camel by asserting that there is 'no proof' of a link."
Malec added, "Women should have been told in 1973 when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion that two studies were on record as showing a positive link between abortion and breast cancer."
Anyone interested in finding out more information on the possible link between abortion and breast cancer can check out the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer at:
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com
Copyright © 2002 RFM NEWS. Permission to reprint granted with acknowledgment.
You mean these?
Unbelievable - yet liberal alarums sound on things like the dangers of sodas and second-hand smoke.
The first time I went to Russia, I went via train and travelled through the extensive Moscow Subway system. I accidentally walked into what appeared to be an abortion clinic - they seemed to be ubiquitous. At the time the sign overhead said "Information" in Cyrillic, so not knowing, I stumbled in looking for directions and "information". Lo and behold it was full of young girls sitting looking sheepishly and watching some kind of gynecological video on a TV monitor. It didn't take me long to realize that this was some kind of an abortion center... a very bustling one at that. I came to the conclusion that the word which looked like "information" actually was a kind of trademark for some kind of corner abortion shop.
I soon consulted my Russian dictionary and found out the real Russian word for information - which is not at all similar to our English one (no cognate).
The last time I went (this spring), I didn't have the chance to take the subway, so couldn't see if this had changed since '94. Seeing the latest demographic statistics, I doubt that there has been a dramatic change.
I remember a book from my youth that has stuck with me: How to Lie with Statistics and my whole life I've watched the left use every tactic they described.
Women aren't interested, sorry.
Galina spent an hour or so talking to us about rearing children, special work protections, incentives, daycare, the works that the government offers to encourage childbirth. No dice.
I think 80 years of militant atheism have taken their toll. Same as here only a different flavor of the diabolical where the imposition of Deathist ideas and "rights" are concerned.
BINGO!!!!!!!!
If there is a real increased risk of breast cancer from first time pregnancy/abortions...not telling young women is criminal.
Sub-Committee Hearings-on "War on Cancer"
Dr. Brind's ABC Link at World Conference on Breast Cancer
Dr. Brind's review of the Melbye/Danish Report
http://members.aol.com/dfjoseph/brind.html
Rofl !1 oh please . . stop ! You're killing me !
Christmas Eve I was standing on the levee watching sparks shower from a raging bonfire turning to embers before my eyes and eavesdropping on two young women talking about how they wanted to have a family and all but figured they'd get a career going first and then worry about kids.
That may be a fine plan for men but it doesn't work the same way for women. There seems little point in wasting your childbearing years on a career you could just as easily pick up at forty and to which you could give your undivided attention once the kids are in college or on their own instead of missing out on their formative years when they need you most.
Certainly an excellent way to counter the empty-nest syndrome.
Women have been duped by the feminists to put the First Things last. That's one reason I posted (and continue to post from time to time) Brother Bernardine's "Four Classes of Women".
It never ceases to amaze me how many guilt-ridden women there are out there. Inevitably, there is shrieking and gnashing of teeth ... as if I'm casting judgment on them for "ending up" begging from Peter to pay Paul as a single mother or choosing work over kids or -- heaven forfend -- ending up a de facto #4 like myself.
The only point in posting it really, is for these women to share it with their daughters. Women need to decide while still young what sort of life they wish to lead ... else they just "end up" some combination of pregnant, married, single or childless.
The sculptor (with whom I basically wasted seven optimum childbearing years) stopped by the porch the other night. During the course of our conversation, we were talking about what a spoiler he was. Strings of women who'd have loved to marry him and have his kids and all of them -- like me -- single and childless instead.
In a moment of charity he reminded me that his brainiac sister had a beautiful, intelligent, gorgeous girl at age 44. All well and good for his sister but I'm not such the flake or so wrapped up in my (non-existent) career that I didn't think about getting married until 40 or impregnated until 44. Plus ... who wants to be 54 on your kid's tenth birthday?
Again, it's one thing if you're a man but quite another if you're a woman ... particularly if you're a woman who has every intention of rearing her own children herself instead of leaving it to the housekeeper, nanny or daycare center.
I don't think increasing your range of fishing coves or the amount of your trolling time is the answer. Quite frankly, at my age (I'm guessing you must be somewhat younger than I), the ratio of freaks and Peter Pans to real men is definitely NOT in our favor. They guys who really wanted to have families do have them already and they're just not out in the bars or giving the gay boys a run for their money on the art circuit. There simply are too many truly frightening scenarios out there as you may know yourself.
I don't wish to assume you're quite as out in left field as I. It's possible you're looking in all the right places. There is this one endearingly loony woman at our firm who informed me the other day that I would probably end up married once I started working at the church. "You're prime material for the Second Wave," she says, "men who got divorced or whose wives have died."
I wasn't sure whether to cry or belt her in the jaw so I just smiled. What can you say? As if some guy fully settled, likely successful, etc. etc. is going to hook up with some middle-aged chick when he could have some nubile thing instead. Silly. Especially if he wants children.
I was talking to my cousin on the beach this summer. Finally divorced from a woman with whom he'd planned on having a family, he's deep into starting up a new company. "I figure the way things are going, I should be ready to have kids in about 5 years so -- for childbearing purposes, I should be dating girls who are 22-25." (Uh-huh ... )
But, technically, he's absolutely right ... though I did take the opportunity to remind him that he was an extremely bright guy and that it might be wise to find someone smarter than he (rotsa ruck with your average co-ed these days). Better to win the hand of someone with whom he was truly in love and wished to spend the rest of his life rather than working it by the numbers from the Age and measurements angle first.
For ... regardless this society's fixation on contraception and "safe sex", the fact is one doesn't always become pregnant at the drop of a hat. Particularly after abusing one's body for a decade or more with human pesticides and other artificial regimens or drugs or habits of one sort or another.
During the family reunion two years ago, Fr. Kenneth Baker and I were talking about these sorts of things and he suggested the Ave Maria site for single Catholics. (Surprised to find out how old I really was, he did caution me that most guys there would be looking for women a little younger for purposes of having kids. Yeah yeah. =) Evidently he knew one or two folks -- including some woman much older than I -- who'd ended up making matches and marrying. There are several sites listed at The Catholic Community Forum, including the Ave Maria site.
I guess one thing I like about it is that it charges such a steep initial membership fee. Nothing wrong with keeping out those who aren't perfectly serious about the endeavor.
Wanting children is just such a serious endeavor. Some jerk on the forum the other day was decrying my pro-life bona fides by castigating me for never having adopted a child or taken in an unwed pregnant girl ... as if single motherhood or hosting unwed mothers were the ticket on my shoestring budget! =)
I'm happy that you too understand how critical is providing kids a father. I cannot fathom the selfishness of women who don't feel their kids need to know, much less live with, their own Dad.
Between some upbraiding of some anonymous woman on Jedigirls' thread (which I took to heart nonetheless) and my running across the fortune-teller excerpt from "The Circus of Dr. Lao" yesterday, I was feeling pretty bummed on just the subject of being a "leftover" woman and having no children ...
Childless you are, and childless you shall remain. Of that suppleness you once commanded in your youth, of that strange simplicity which once attracted a few men to you, neither endures, nor shall you recapture any of them any more. People will talk to you and visit with you out of sentiment or pity, not because you have anything to offer them. Have you ever seen an old cornstalk turning brown, dying, but refusing to fall over, upon which stray birds alight now and then, hardly remarking what it is they perch on? That is you. I cannot fathom your place in life's economy. A living thing should either create or destroy according to its capacity and caprice, but you, you do neither.
But, no sooner had I arrived home in an awful slump of sorts (even the dog was worried), my friend the dulcimer player came knocking on my door ... wanting to please bum one of my cold drip ice coffees, report on his tuning progress and set a date for our next taping session.
As is generally the case with any impromptu knock on the door, two hours later he was still talking and, for whatever reason, he ended up telling me how he's always seen me and -- quite honestly -- I was stunned to think I could give such an impression to someone who's primarily known me only in passing though we've certain circles of friends and acquaintances in common.
Long story short ... it may hurt how unfair life appears to be sometimes but if you don't closet yourself in bitterness or anger or self-pity, it's possible you'll make some sense out of your suffering ... not only get wise but occasionally be blessed to receive the occasional reminder that your suffering's actually born fruit somehow in the lives of others.
There is a collection of essays by some Anglican clergyman among the books my grandmother keeps in her chapel. I was musialing through it late one night and "The Usefulness of Spinsters" essay caught my eye. (I'm probably remembering the title as a little more harsh that is is but it's a book circa WWI and fairly straightforward, if you know what I mean.)
I shall make a copy of it this weekend and maybe post it. I like to use it as a Brechtian slap in the face anytime I'm getting maudlin about all my dumb moves, marriage and kids and the way some folks -- particularly women who abort their children -- practically twist the knife in the hearts of those who can't conceive, who've had miscarriages or who would give anything to have a child or -- at the very least -- given themselves only to the sort of a man who would marry her and would wish to keep any child they did conceive.
Did I say "long story short" and still forget the point? This response is only so long because I want to make certain you don't think I'm offering platitudes without empathy. It's more than the old "just when you quit looking, love will find you" thing ... it's more a prayer that -- regardless whether or not you're blessed with the marriage and children to which you'd give yourself utterly and which would make you happy -- there is always the opportunity to give yourself completely ... to your first and only true Love by ... especially, it seems, by leaving yourself detached and, barring self-absorption, selfless such that you're there to attend to any of His children in need, not just those you or others might consider "yours".
Damned tough being an Order of One these days but there are more of us out there than you know ... wishing like hell we did have some Mother Superior who'd banish us to the Baron's manse to look after his kids and sing songs all day! (Though real life's never works out quite the same as the movies, I know ... =)
I'll keep you in my prayers. Take care.
Russians (and most of East Europeans) developed a severe case of alergy to the censorship, official lies and propaganda. Probably uncurable. West will get the same disease in a fifty years or so.
Yes, about 50% of cases in America can be caused by abortion. Another part is cased by miscarriages and by hormonal "therapies". The rest is much less than half.
The mechanism is a sudden disruption of rapid development of cells which are to produce milk.
Come on, you know better! You betrayed it by including miscarriages in your list. (Miscarriages physiologically are similar to abortion.) About HALF of abortion cases can be associated with abortion and some others with miscarriage.
Oh yeah. Every tactic they described. Systematically.
Now then, in the specific context of this discussion, we must consider whom we are addressing: a woman (usually one who is quite young) who is pregnant (usually for the first time) and contemplating an abortion.
If this is her first pregnancy, is there a greater risk of breast cancer in having the abortion, or in bringing the pregnancy to term? Because we can't turn back the clock and make her "un-pregnant."
It is only by extending the discussion out-of-context that any accusation of intellectual dishonesty gains any validity. We are talking only about pregnant women, not all women.
I wanted to shut them off after the first paragraph. I'll try that again.
Oh yeah. Every tactic they described. Systematically.
Now then, in the specific context of this discussion, we must consider whom we are addressing: a woman (usually one who is quite young) who is pregnant (usually for the first time) and contemplating an abortion.
If this is her first pregnancy, is there a greater risk of breast cancer in having the abortion, or in bringing the pregnancy to term? Because we can't turn back the clock and make her "un-pregnant."
It is only by extending the discussion out-of-context that any accusation of intellectual dishonesty gains any validity. We are talking only about pregnant women, not all women.
There. That's better.
During the (outrageous) bombing of Kosovo, posts from Pravda proved to be more reliable and more factual than those from mainstream press sources.
In a relative sense, sure, there is a VERY slightly greater risk of breast cancer in having the abortion AS COMPARED to having the baby. The abortion would keep the status quo/default level of risk she was born with intact. Giving birth would slightly LESSEN that "default" risk level, though probably not enough to even make her reconsider.
One of the biggest problems with the ABC argument is that it appeals to the selfish nature of shortsighted young women. It's not about right or wrong, it's about the girl and some infintesimally small difference in risk to her breast health when she's 50. First off, she doesn't care. She just wants her baby dead. Secondly, even if you manage to scare her off the abortion track and save the baby, you haven't changed her mind about abortion. You've just lied to her and made her fearful.
This is just a desperate scare tactic, and it does a real disservice to our cause. We are in the right, and time and hard work will bear that out. We WILL win--but not by twisting the facts and sullying our trustworthiness.
I am sorry, your personal situation does not equal a scientific study. Either way, you can trust the Planned Parenthood that they will not frighten you by the REAL scientific studies. You can find this introductory quote (which suggests the possible mechanism) and studies at: Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer site
"Breast cells have been hypothesized to be the most susceptible to transformation into malignant cells when breast tissue contains primarily rapidly growing and undifferentiated epithelial cells – i.e., during adolescence and pregnancy. . . . Some investigators have hypothesized that the termination of pregnancy in the first two trimesters may alter the carcinogenic potential of breast tissue by interrupting the complete differentiation of breast cells that occurs during full-term pregnancy and confers protection." Phyllis A. Wingo (American Cancer Society) (1997).
I have not forgotten that I owe you a reply on that thread. In fact, I think about it quite often. It seems I can't coalesce the ideas that I wish to express, let alone verbalize them.
A quick comment on the two young women you overheard on the levee: It appears that they, like I, have been suckered/brainwashed by the popular culture. I eventually came to my senses, but not before taking several missteps in my effort to "fit in" (as I thought I was the one who was wrong).
I'll leave it at that for now. Further discussion seems to me to be better suited to comfortable seating and appropriate refreshments. That will have to wait until you visit this neck of the woods or I return to your neighborhood.
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