Dear Anti-Choicers: Please Shut Up About the Non-Existent Link Between Abortion and Breast Cancer

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 9:45 AM on June 25, 2009.

I can't believe the anti-choicers are still on the "abortion causes breast cancer" kick.

"Susan G. Komen for the Cure is no friend of women," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. "Komen perpetuates the breast cancer epidemic by withholding the truth that abortion increases breast cancer risk. We have three challenges for Komen.

"First, we challenge Komen to debate the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link with us at the next Catholic Health Association (CHA) meeting or another venue. Since science is on our side, we expect Komen will duck the debate, as others have.

Leaving aside that there are legitimate criticisms to be made of SGK4Cure (and let's genuinely leave that aside in this thread, please), among them is not that SGK4Cure "perpetuates the breast cancer epidemic." And possibly the reason SGK4Cure will "duck the debate" is because

there is no debate

The largest, and probably the most reliable, single study of this topic was done during the 1990s in Denmark, a country with very detailed medical records on all its citizens. In that study, all Danish women born between 1935 and 1978 (a total of 1.5 million women) were linked with the National Registry of Induced Abortions and with the Danish Cancer Registry. So all information about their abortions and their breast cancer came from registries, was very complete, and was not influenced by recall bias.

After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found that induced abortion(s) had no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer. The size of this study and the manner in which it was done provides good evidence that induced abortion does not affect a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.

Another large, prospective study was reported on by Harvard researchers in 2007. This study included more than 100,000 women who were between the ages of 29 and 46 at the start of the study in 1993. These women were followed until 2003. Again, because they were asked about their reproductive history at the start of the study, recall bias was unlikely to be a problem. After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found no link between either spontaneous or induced abortions and breast cancer.

The California Teachers Study also reported on more than 100,000 women in 2008. Researchers asked the women in 1995 about past induced and spontaneous abortions. While the women were being followed, more than 3,300 developed invasive breast cancer. There was no difference in breast cancer risk between the group who had either spontaneous or induced abortions and those who had not had an abortion.

Such things are much easier to ignore when one doesn't believe in science, I guess. Unless, of course, science (or one of its alleged ambassadors) can be used to support anti-choicers' continued assertion that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer:

Joel Brind, endocrinology professor at Baruch College, City University of New York, argued that donations to Komen may be doing more harm than good because childbearing is known to offer significant protection against breast cancer and Planned Parenthood deprives women of that protective effect.

Interesting fact: Childbearing is considered to offer some long-term protection against breast cancer, but in the short-term: "Breast cancer risk is increased for a short time after a full-term pregnancy (that is, a pregnancy that results in the birth of a living child)."

Suffice it to say you won't find that in any anti-choicer press releases.

[H/T to Mr. Petulant.]

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.