Posted on 09/22/2014 7:01:19 PM PDT by CharlesOConnell
by Steve Mosher | 9/22/2014 | Life News
My Canadian friend could not contain himself.
“These new studies out of India NUKE the Abortion-Breast-Cancer deniers,” Brent Rooney told me gleefully. “They simply NUKE them!”
Looking at the data Brent had sent me from his office in Vancouver, British Columbia, I could see why he was so excited. He had found twelve recent studies in the medical literature, all carried out on the Indian subcontinent, that looked into whether there was a link between prior abortions and breast cancer. And all twelve found that women who had had prior abortions were at an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Let me repeat that: each and every one of these studies done on the Indian subcontinent suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer.
Here are the actual numbers Brent sent me:
| Author | Year | Odds Ratio | 95% Cl or p value |
| Rai et al. | 2008 | 2.21 | p < 0.05 |
| Kaur et al. | 2011 | 2.79 | p < 0.001 |
| Lodha et al. | 2011 | 1.91 | p = 0.214 (not sig.) |
| Santhy et al. | 2012 | 1.22 | not significant |
| Balasubrahmanian et al. | 2013 | 2.08 | 1.15 – 3.75 |
| Bhadoria et al. | 2013 | 6.26 | 4.16 – 9.41 |
| Kamath et al. | 2013 | 5.75 | 1.27 – 25.99 |
| Roy et al. | 2014 | 10.66 | p < 0.0001 |
| Takalkar et al. | 2014 | 2.8 | 1.82 – 5.12 |
| De Silva ( Sri Lanka) | 2010 | 3.42 | 1.75 – 6.66 |
| Raza (Pakistan) | 2011 | 6.80 | p < 0.05 |
| Jabeen (Bangladesh) | 2013 | 20.62 | data not shown |
Before your eyes glaze over, focus on the third column, the “Odds Ratio.” This is the key indicator here because it represents the odds of developing breast cancer if you have had a prior abortion (compared to the odds of developing breast cancer if you haven’t). Note that all twelve studies have an Odds Ratio greater than 1.0, indicating increased risk.
But get this: the average Odds Ratio for these twelve studies is 5.54. That means that the breast cancer risk for Indian women who have had prior abortions is five and a half times that of women who have not. Another way to put it is that you have a 554% increased risk of developing breast cancer if you have had a prior induced abortion. That’s pretty scary, isn’t it?
Abortion-rights activists, who like to argue that abortion has no lasting health risks, will find it very, very difficult to explain away such numbers. It’s not surprising that in recent years, when the topic of the ABC link comes up, many offer perfunctory denials and then quickly change the subject.
Another reason why these findings are so important is that women in India and neighboring countries are simply ideal subjects for studies of the ABC link. They marry early, do not use the pill, have multiple pregnancies, and breastfeed their babies. In other words, all of the other major risk factors for breast cancer are … absent.
Many women in countries like the United States, Australia, and Great Britain, on the other hand, all engage in other behaviors—besides abortion—that can cause breast cancer. They marry late or not at all. They use oral contraceptives when young and go on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) when older. They have only one or no full-term pregnancies. And they do not breastfeed.
When these “confounding factors”—as they are called—are present, they make it difficult to sort out just how much induced abortions raise a woman’s lifetime breast cancer risk.
But they are largely absent in India, so the ABC link comes through loud and clear.
In fact,the ABC link these Indian studies confirm is stronger than other risk factors for breast cancer that we know of, such as advanced age, having a family history of breast cancer, or being childless.
These new Indian studies have come to light not long after the publication of a huge meta-analysis of 36 (thirty-six!) studies done in Mainland China. This study also showed a statistically significant risk of breast cancer following abortion. For Chinese women who have had one or more induced abortions the increased risk was 44% (Odds Ratio 1.44). The risk jumped to 76% for women who had had two or more previous abortions.
As Dr. Joel Brind, perhaps the leading authority on the Abortion-Breast Cancer link, notes, “The study confirmed the results I and my co-authors from Penn State Medical College had reported in 1996 in the British Medical Association’s epidemiology journal.” The Brind et al study showed an increased risk of 30% (Odds Ratio 1.3).
There are reams of reliable data. There are—literally—dozens of studies showing that women who undergo induced abortions have a significantly increased risk of developing breast cancer down the road. And yet …..
The abortion movement continues to whistle past the graveyard—where the bodies of women who have died from abortion-induced breast cancer are buried. It continues to try and discredit the mounting evidence of an ABC link by claiming, “Weak associations can turn up by chance and are therefore random and meaningless.”
Well, the associations revealed in the Indian and Chinese studies were not weak at all, but statistically very robust. Women deserve to know that they are at significantly greater risk of developing breast cancer if they undergo an induced abortion.
Why doesn’t the abortion movement—which claims to have the interests of women at heart—warn them about this risk? Why do they continue to concoct flawed arguments, and publish flawed studies, in an attempt to discredit an ABC link that has now been clearly proven?
It’s fairly obvious to me that the deniers are more concerned about promoting their own dogmatic beliefs than they are about saving women’s lives. The radical feminists believe that women need to be liberated from childbearing. The radical abortion movement believes that Planned Parenthood needs to make money. And the radical environmentalists believe the planet needs to be relieved of its burden of humanity.
They are irresponsibly advancing their own deadly agendas at the expense of science and women’s lives. What’s scientific and liberating about that?
LifeNews Note: Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits.
Thank you for the post. I get so damned tired of fending off that godawful “smash” machine, after arguing “risk factors” with well-meaning, butt-covering, modern medicine procedure following, but brain-dead docs, who sleep walk through office visits.
I told a pushy doc once, that I would go through with the “smash radiation machine” right after he had his family jewels equally smashed and radiated.
All I got was that “look”, and a note in my file. He had no sense of humor, and if I had to pay his medical malpractice insurance bill, I probably wouldn’t think me amusing, either.
Had my first precious baby at 18 yrs, breast-fed the rest of my four until it was beyond unfashionable (but never in public, respecting the fragility of the horses in the streets), ... and never had an abortion, did my best to eat properly, and so on.
If I am an outlier at my ripe old age and get a lump, so be it. Hospice, here I come!
I will blame it on all those x-rays of my feet given in shoestores back in the 50’s, or the imminent nuclear bombing attacks that I had to duck&cover (under that tiny desk) in early elementary school, or something equally ridiculous and beyond my personal control.
Bookmarking for tomorrow morning’s reading.
No where does the article say women who don’t have abortions are breast cancer free.
Plus are you really sure that every woman you know never had had an abortion?
I have seen pro-abortion writers try to downplay the link by claiming that women lie about having abortions, so no real connection can be made.
Of course, when they make that claim, what they omit is that women who have not had abortions are rarely going to lie and claim otherwise. But women who have had abortions will lie and say they haven't (because of the associated stigma). This pattern of lying predominately in one direction actually means that breast cancer cases associated with prior abortion are shifted into the non-abortive cases category, which lowers the odds ratio below its true value. In other words, the risk of breast cancer associated with abortion is higher than what those studies show.
It’s fairly obvious to me that the deniers are more concerned about promoting their own dogmatic beliefs than they are about saving women’s lives. The radical feminists believe that women need to be liberated from childbearing. The radical abortion movement believes that Planned Parenthood needs to make money. And the radical environmentalists believe the planet needs to be relieved of its burden of humanity.
Abortion has never been about women's rights. It's primarily about using women as a cash crop. It's about teaching women that the only value of a human being is utilitarian--if that person is a non-contributor, he/she is a burden that may be eliminated without qualm. The message with this is that the woman having the abortion is just as dispensable. It's also about teaching women that they are completely incapable of independence or responsibility--that by their nature, they are like animals in heat when men are present--that they have to depend on some kind of external intervention to prevent them from being baby factories--that they are incapable of making any rational decision to take steps to prevent pregnancy when they don't want a baby (and thus are incapable of any kind of responsibility). Pro-abortion is fundamentally anti-woman.
Good point...I’m against abortion but this conclusion would seem to have wide reaching repercussions for women in general.
Here’s what I don’t understand.
If abortion can encourage breast cancer, why wouldn’t a natural miscarriage have the same result?
Almost every woman in my family has naturally lost their first pregnancy. (It’s to the point where everyone stays calm through the first pregnancy and, when it’s lost, we remind the mother that it was her body’s ‘practice pregnancy’. Second pregnancies never have a problem.)
Now, in my family, its pretty dramatic, but I know many women who lose the first one. It’s not uncommon.
With that in mind, why would abortion be more likely to cause breast cancer than a natural miscarriage? Has anyone ever done a study where they compare women who’ve had abortions with those who have had miscarriages with those who’ve only had successful pregnancies with those who’ve never been pregnant at all?
With an abortion the hormones do not kick in because the hormones stop at the point of the abortion, so the cells in the breasts remain open and vulnerable to cancer.
My information comes from honest studies I read in 1985.
Most of the studies I have seen today are being done to prove that there is no connection between abortion and cancer. These studies are funded by Planned Parenthood or the drug industry, both having a vested interest to "prove" there is no connection between what they do and breast cancer. These studies lump in miscarriage as if they are medically the same thing when they are not. Doctors routinely call a miscarriage an "abortion," which is unfair to the woman who has just miscarried.
I would like to add one thing. All of those babies who were miscarried will be waiting for you all in heaven.
I think it is because even natural miscarriages are, well... natural. Abortion is an abrupt and unnatural surgical procedure, performed in most cases in the first trimester. The body is not prepared for it.
So why not tubular/ectopic pregnancies? In those situations, the embryo is developing fine, it’s just in the wrong place. It takes a surgery to suddenly stop it. It *is* an abortion. (One of my relatives had a perfectly healthy embryo that had attached to her ovary. She had to have the embryo and the ovary removed with an emergency surgery when she was 11 weeks pregnant. It broke her heart.)
Has anyone checked to see if tubular/ectopic pregnancies result in higher rates of breast cancer?
And what about molar pregnancies? That’s about as ‘unnatural’ as it can get. The hormones go insane in both directions. (My daughter)
Pregnancy is wrought with danger (for mom and baby). Yet, the only group that’s consistently demonstrated an increase in breast cancer are women who don’t have children and never get pregnant. (the nun study was shocking in that regard)
I’m pro-life, but I’m also pro-truth and, until *all* of these factors are taken into account, I just don’t see it.
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