Religion, Science

Lying For Jesus: The Abortion/Breast Cancer Link

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

For those who oppose abortion no tactic is too sleazy. The scare tactic of stopping abortion by linking it with breast cancer was manna from heaven. The visceral fear of breast cancer would present the faithful with a weapon to be wielded with no regard for the facts. The fact that the scientific evidence shows no link between abortion and breast cancer fazed them not.

The recent Komen/Planned Parenthood publicity and Komen’s ties to this woo, has reanimated this long-dead controversy.

The Komen tie-in is via Jane Abraham, a member of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance board of directors. Abraham is also on the board of directors of The Nurturing Network, an organization founded and chaired by Mary Cunningham Agee. It was Agee who, in 1999, wrote in a Culture of Life Foundation newsletter that “the undeniable link between breast cancer and abortion is only the ‘tip of an iceberg’ of damage that medical science is now able to reveal about this procedure.”

Abraham is also founder and General Chairman of the Susan B. Anthony List. On its website, the SBA List touts its Komen connection while claiming:

There are also studies that link abortion to breast cancer- which is precisely what SGK is supposed to be fighting against.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a lie.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a report, Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk, that found:

More rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found:

Breast cancer: induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.

The American Cancer Society studied the link and reported the results:

  • Induced abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk.
  • Spontaneous abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk.

These scientific results are known to the anti-abortion cadre, and they’d rather lie to women.

H/T: Jodi Jacobson, Catholics For Choice (pdf).

254 thoughts on “Lying For Jesus: The Abortion/Breast Cancer Link”

  2. Kairho: If you follow the link to Drumm’s post yesterday that prompted this post today (as I’d hoped Drumm himself would do), you’ll find a law review comment with plenty of cites to the scientific literature (and I think you can safely assume that the editors of said law review checked all of those cites for accuracy before they decided to publish it), a list of all the studies in the worldwide literature published to date and their results, and appellate briefs quoting the trial transcripts of cross-examinations of experts in this field.

  3. Let’s take a look at what David Gorski, MD, PhD, wrote about the article John Kindley linked to:

    Abortion and breast cancer: The manufactroversy that won’t die

    According to the table [Table 1], the odds ratio (OR) for breast cancer in women who have had one or more abortions is 1.4 (95% confidence interval 1.1 to 1.8), a barely statistically significant result.
    …
    In any case, it’s barely statistically significant and comes from a pooled retrospective study where the most recent cases date back to the early 1990s, both factors that make it very prone to bias or spurious results. More recent research done prospectively should have (and does have) greater weight.
    …
    Given the problems with the study and in light of data gathered over the 15 years since the last of the three studies whose subjects make up this reanalysis was completed, I am completely underwhelmed with this study as any sort of strong evidence for an ABC link.

  5. John Kindley, did you read all the way to the bottom of that linked article? There is a disclaimer down at the bottom, to wit:

    Acknowledgments
    The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

    The authors PAID the journal to publish their article. That is what “page charges” mean, and that under 18 U.S.C. § 1734, it is classified as an advertisement.

  8. Could someone please link to a study in a peer reviewed medical journal that supports the position there is a statistically significant link between breast cancer and abortion. If that theory were provable, then you can bet the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association would be all over it. I subscribe to online professional journal search services, and there is NOTHING there. As Holmes observed, “The dog did not bark.”

    That there is some risk factor associated with some contraceptives for increased risk of stroke and cancer is true, but those are of minimal risk when compared with risk factors for pregnancy complications, not to mention the psychological and economic toll of unwanted pregnancies. There is no medicine, even aspirin, where there is not some side effect. The truth is, there is no correlation at all between abortion and cancer.

    There is a very high risk of death or sterilization due to botched abortions done in a non-medical setting.

  10. At the half: Drumm 5, Kindley 1

    1 point for a study, 2 points for a meta-study or compilation of multiple studies.

  11. It is time for the Susan B. Komen foundation to lose its tax exempt status. They are obviously an arm of the Republican Party and not a charity.

  13. You, sir, are the liar. Yesterday I challenged you in a comment to follow the truth wherever it might lead, while expressing doubt that you would do so. And indeed, true to form, all you’ve done today is quote the same tired old authorities, and you think this is enough to declare those who are well aware of what these authorities say, and who have actually read the studies, and in some cases have actually cross-examined these “authorities” on the stand in court under oath, catching them in documented inconsistencies and contradictions, to be “liars.” (For what it’s worth, I don’t believe abortion, at least during the first trimester, should be criminalized. My views on the morality of abortion and whether it should be legal do not color my view of the scientific evidence linking induced abortion with increased breast cancer risk. I can’t say the same for you. And the real issue here is not whether abortion should be legal or illegal, but informed consent. I thought liberals believed in informed consent.) You have demonstrated that you have no interest in learning anything about this issue in order to have anything worthwhile to say, but for the benefit of your readers, here’s a link to just one actual study on the subject (note in particular the year of the study, the authors and where they come from, and the first three sentences of the Results section): http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/download/Abortion_Breast_Cancer_Epid_Bio_Prev_2009.pdf

  14. OS, some rise in the morning needing to busy-body those around them. They are not happy unless they are meddling and controlling the lives of others. When this converges with male-dominated monolithic religious claptrappery, the busy-bodying becomes self-righteous. When you converge this with belief over reason, you get hung up on by “priests” when you state the bloody obvious.

    Until recently, due to a misguided interpretation of the First Amendment in which we are all encouraged to accept the magic-thinking of others “just because,” the busy-body never heard the one word that shuts them down: NO.

    I will be voting that notion.

  15. I grew up in a moderately religious family. I went to weekly bible study and, in my teen years a youth club that had weekly fun events. What surprised me was when I discovered that they would lie for Christ. I was an amateur magician (and a darn bad one!) of about 15 when I saw some clown perform cheap magic acts and pretend God was making it happen. When I pointed out I could do that without divine intervention it was not appreciated. I have also seen the bait-n-switch designed to draw in a crowd & wondered if God is so powerful why do they have to lie and cheat to be successful? Those are the tactics of Satan, or at least you would think.

  16. I like to think I have a good understanding of human motivations, but some of the stuff that is coming out of the right wing fundie group about breasts and contraception leaves me scratching my head.

    Women are encouraged to breast feed their babies, but then fired from their jobs for using pumps at work. They are ejected from public places for discreetly nursing babies. The flash of a nipple at a ball game results in draconian fies for a network.

    Then there are the lies. Abortion causes breast cancer, Really, now? Where are the studies?

    A number of years ago, I got a phone call from the youth minister of a local church who wanted me to come and speak to his group. I agreed, since I always am interested in giving kids good information. Then he said he wanted the topic to be about how Rock music causes sexual promiscuity, miscegenation, and abortions. When I told him there was absolutely no scientific or rational basis for such a claim, he hung up on me.

  19. Well I never…. but then again… most of the elected ones are cancerious as well….

    I wonder if the Royal one was Koch funded?

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