Women must know the truth

Following publication of new research into the links between abortion and breast cancer, UK anti-abortion agencies are demanding that women should be told about the serious health risks before they terminate their pregnancies.

Breast cancer is now the commonest form of cancer in the UK. Around 30,000* women are diagnosed with the disease in England and Wales each year. One in nine women will develop breast cancer at some time in their lives.

The cause of this major rise in post-menopausal breast cancer is currently unknown, and although nationwide breast-screening programmes (introduced 1988/9) caused a surge of new cases in the early 1990s, this cannot account for the resumption of an upward trend in disease rates, after an initial peak, in women aged 45-59 in the mid-90s.

Claim and counter claim

The possibility of this link was first raised in the 1960s by a Russian study that found clear evidence that abortion increased the chances of a woman contracting breast cancer by as much as three times. Although these findings were contested, there has been growing evidence that the link is real, including a US study in 1996.

Anti-abortion agencies claim that these findings are being ignored by governments and institutional scientists who promote the practice of abortion. But new evidence published last year makes it increasingly difficult to deny the links.

The new study, which is the first of its kind in Britain and reviews a wide range of statistics, suggests that women who have had an abortion are up to twice as likely to suffer from breast cancer.

The study looked at breast cancer and abortion rates in Britain, Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic and draws a direct link between the rising number of cases of breast cancer and an increase in abortion since it was legalised.

The research, published in December by the Populations and Pensions Research Institution (PAPRI), an independent group of statisticians, suggested that up to 50% of breast cancer cases in England and Wales over the next 26 years will be 'attributable to abortion'.

Women at risk

The study concludes that the current, and future, rises in breast cancer will largely be attributable to the high rate of abortions and the decline in the birth rate in the UK, partially off-set by the rise in breast-feeding rates which provides a preventative effect. There are predictions of potential rises in breast cancer rates between 1997 and 2023. The Swedish data confirms the conclusion that there is a causal link between abortion and breast cancer.

Professor Joel Brind of New York's City University and director of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute in New York, pointed out that the study was intellectually watertight. He said: 'Women are at risk and they do not really know about it. They certainly don't seem to be finding out about it from the NHS.' 'This implicates a risk factor that is a matter of choice', he explained. Simply undergoing an abortion once measurably increases the risk of breast cancer. We are talking about thousands of cases of breast cancer over the next 20 years. That is a very sobering statistic.'

This 44-page study is the culmination of two years' work. The document, commissioned by the national charity LIFE, contains much information that will hopefully spark an open and intelligent debate within the medical establishment. There is much evidence that the hitherto-unknown cause of the recent rises in breast cancer can now be identified as abortion, in particular, nulliparous induced abortion.

Greater risk

LIFE warns that, in view of the mounting evidence of the damage which abortion does to women, it is now impossible for a doctor to certify in good faith that continuance of a pregnancy would involve a greater threat to the physical or mental health of a woman than would termination.

'Post-abortion trauma is now a major women's disease', says LIFE Trustee Nuala Scarisbrick. 'At least one in ten suffer seriously from it, sometimes many years later. Abortion is a significant risk factor for female infertility; and now we have a convergence of evidence that it could also be a major risk factor for breast cancer - now the commonest form of cancer, increasing at an alarming rate and killing about 25% of those who suffer from it.

'Using the latest study, we claim that as many as 22,000 women aged between 45 and 59 could already have developed breast cancer attributable to abortions carried out under the 1967 Abortion Act, and that 5,000 of them have died, or will soon die, as a result. If there are no major advances in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease, over a third of a million women could have developed the disease by 2023, attributable to abortions already carried out - and a horrifying 60-70,000 could have died from it.

'Women must be warned of the terrible hazards. The maternal death rate from abortion is hundreds of times greater than for childbirth. Doctors can no longer state that it would be better for the woman's health not to go through with the pregnancy, which is the ground in the Abortion Act on which 90% of abortions are currently done in this country. If doctors are not meeting the requirements of the Act they are acting unlawfully.

'We are sending this warning to gynaecologists throughout the country.'

* ONS: Cancer 1971-1997 (CD-ROM) Office for National Statistics, 1999

Further information on the new report is available on the LIFE website at: www.lifeUK.org.

© Evangelicals Now - February 2002
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