Embryo Experiments: Politics beats science and ethics in the USA and South Australia

Babette Francis

every year for the breast cancer crusade. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of American women are developing the disease each year. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women ages 20-59. Nearly 275,000 total breast cancer cases and nearly 41,000 deaths are expected in 2006. Lifetime risk of breast cancer for the average U.S. woman has climbed from 1 in 12 women in 1970, to 1 in 7 women in 2006. Women have been kept in the dark about extensive research dating from 1957* that links abortion with breast cancer. Most breast cancer patients have never had an abortion, but women have the right to know that abortion is the most preventable cause of the disease. Choosing between abortion and childbirth influences your breast cancer risk. Cancer groups agree your risk increases if you: 1) Have few or no children; 2) Delay your first full term pregnancy until age 24 or older; or 3) Do little or no breastfeeding. Therefore, it is undeniable that abortion contributes to our nation’s surging breast cancer rates in this way. Childbearing dramatically reduces breast cancer risk.

After reviewing 47 studies conducted in 30 countries, Oxford scientists concluded that increased childbearing and increased duration of breastfeeding would reduce breast cancer rates in developed nations by over 50%. [Lancet 2002;360:187- 195] Only a full term pregnancy matures a woman’s immature, cancer-susceptible breast tissue into cancer-resistant tissue. [Neville & Daniel (ed) The Mammary Gland, Plenum, NY 1987:67-93] Abortion causes women to lose an important opportunity to acquire cancer-resistant tissue.

For this reason, your breast cancer risk will be higher if you abort your pregnancy than if you have a baby. Additionally, eight medical groups agree that an abortion will further increase your risk by leaving your breasts with more places for cancer to start. Many physicians aren’t aware of the connection between abortion and breast cancer or are reluctant to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence (perhaps because of the risk of massive medical malpractice lawsuits). However, you are responsible for your own health care. It’s important for you to fully disclose your own health history and to discuss the connection with your doctor.

*For a list of authoritative studies and medical organizations whose experts recognize the link between abortion and breast cancer, visit our website at www. AbortionBreastCancer.com.

Why induced abortions raise breast cancer risk Estrogen is a hormone made by your ovaries, but scientists also consider it to be a carcinogen, an agent that causes cancer. Overexposure to estrogen is connected with the

development of most breast cancers. The World Health Organization identified combined oral contraceptives and combined hormone replacement therapy (estrogen plus progestin) as “Group 1 carcinogens” in 2005. These facts provide further evidence that abortion raises breast cancer risk. The biological basis for all three risks is the same. Breast tissue is made of lobules. A lobule is a unit of breast tissue that contains a milk duct and some milk producing glands. At puberty, estrogen levels rise and cause the breast tissue to develop into a system of immature, cancer-vulnerable Type 1 and 2 lobules. About 80% of all breast cancers are invasive ductal cancers that form in Type 1 lobules; and 10% of all breast cancers are lobular cancers that arise in Type 2 lobules. During a normal pregnancy, your breasts grow because estrogen stimulates your lobules to multiply.Your ovaries begin producing extra estrogen within a few days after conception. By the end of the first trimester, the level of estrogen in your blood has increased by 2000% - to a level more than six times higher than it ever gets in the non-pregnant state. Beginning at 32 weeks of pregnancy, another process called “differentiation” protects you from the harmful effects of estrogen.

Differentiation matures your breast tissue into cancer-resistant Type 3 lobules. After birth, when these lobules contain milk, they are called Type 4 lobules. If you give birth at full term, you will be left with more cancer-resistant lobules than you had before your pregnancy began. More than 70% of your lobules will consist of Type 3 lobules. That’s why a full term pregnancy, especially starting before age 24, lowers the risk of breast cancer later in life. But if you have an abortion, you’ll be left with more cancervulnerable lobules than you had before your pregnancy began. (That is why women who have premature deliveries before 32 weeks of pregnancy also increase their breast cancer risk. They have more places for cancers to start.) By contrast, most first trimester miscarriages don’t raise breast cancer risk because the hormone level is inadequate.

✔ Dr. Lynn Rosenberg, testifying on behalf of abortion providers represented by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, admits that a 15-year-old girl who aborts her first pregnancy is more likely to get breast cancer later on, than a 15-year-old girl who carries her first pregnancy to term. Rosenberg (1999) NW FL Women’s Health vs. State of FL, FL Circuit Ct., 2nd circ., videotape deposition of 11/18/99, pp. 77-78

✔ “This situation is akin to the early studies that indicated that cigarette smoking was linked to heart disease and lung cancer in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but that those medical establishments initially denied.... We are at a similar crossroads for women and induced abortion today….” Elizabeth Shadisufficient evidence to identify breast cancer as a long-term health consequence of abortion. South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, 9/21/05

✔ “The unwillingness of scientists to speak out against the shoddy research that is being advanced by those who deny the abortion-breast cancer link is a very serious breach…. When the public learns that a causal link between abortion and breast cancer has been downplayed by the scientific community – for reasons that are ideological rather than factual – the feeling of betrayal will be strong.” Furton E. Ethics & Medics 2004;29:1-2

✔ Two American and two Australian women have won medical malpractice lawsuits against abortion doctors who didn’t warn them about the risks of breast cancer and emotional harm. Schlafly A. Jrnl Am Phys Surgeons 2005;10:11-14.

✔ A woman who is pregnant when diagnosed with breast cancer or who gets pregnant after breast cancer is much more likely to be cured if she carries the baby to term instead of choosing an abortion. Clark & Chua, Clin Oncol 1989;1:11-18

✔ Breast cancer rates climbed more than 40% between 1987 and 1998. The increase was limited to women young enough (i.e. under age 40) to have had legal abortions starting in 1973 when abortion became legally accessible. The two older age groups didn’t have access to legal abortions and didn’t experience an increase in breast cancer cases. “Report to the nation on the status of cancer,” Jrnl of Natl Cancer Inst (2001) Vol. 93, No. 11, p. 824-42, figure 3