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Abortion Raises Breast Cancer Risk By 40 Percent
Less than two months since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform. An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. [1]
Additionally, Dolle’s team showed that women who start OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality.
“Although the study was published nine months ago,” observed Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, “the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women.”
Brinton was the chief organizer of the 2003 NCI workshop on the abortion-breast cancer link, which falsely assured women that the non-existence of the link was “well established.” [2]
Dolle’s team reported in Table 1 a statistically significant 40% risk increase for women who have had abortions. They listed abortion among “known and suspected risk factors.”
Brinton and Daling had previously studied this population from the Seattle-Puget Sound area in the 1990s and reported risk increases between 20% and 50% among women with abortions. [3,4] In the 2009 study, they and their co-authors wrote that their findings concerning induced abortion, OC use and certain other risk factors, “were consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.”
“Obviously, more women will die of breast cancer if the NCI fails in its duty to warn about the risks of OCs and abortion and if government funds are used to pay for both as a part of any healthcare bill,” said Mrs. Malec.
A brief analysis of the study (click here) , Dolle et al. 2009, was provided by Dr. Joel Brind, professor of biology and endocrinology and deputy chair for biology at Baruch College, City University of New York.
Last year, studies from Turkey and China also reported statistically significant risk increases for women who had abortions. [5,6]
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women’s organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175394.php
Talk about an inflammatory headline! As a former abortion-clinic defender and a lifelong activist for women’s health and women’s rights, I find this headline truly deceptive. Try looking at all the attendant stress factors: all the stress factors involved in trying to get an abortion in this society with all the pressures against that decision, and all the cost factors for all but rich women, especially in vulnerable low-income groups who cannot get abortions from publicly-funded health plans. Then look at relationship stress: too often the boy/man involved leaves the woman flat or gives all the clues he’s about to do so, before the abortion. Then, let’s look at dissonance with religious ‘values’ redolent with hypocrisy and judgmental negatives, which are usually part of the personal family script of young woman needing abortions. And finally let’s look at the fact that women’s health is an ever-declining non-priority to our USA nation’s “Warrior Society” culture [sic]. Now more than ever women are NOT getting proper women’s-health preventative and other health care, not unless they’re made of money. The economy and job market makes it harder than ever for women to get and keep medical appointments – IF their health plan even covers those – and IF their bosses aren’t constantly coercing women into staying at work and not taking any time off for appointments of any kind. Finally, let’s look at the fact that there are more women having to support themselves with less money, often not receiving proper child-support payments and/or decent wages. Add those stressors to the constant guilt-fostering media and cultural pressures in this country, post-abortion, and you can see why women who’ve had abortions have health issues that can make them vulnerable to cancers including breast cancer.
MORE JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY PLEASE – ESPECIALLY FOR AN ISSUE SUCH AS THIS.
NOT getting an abortion and having to raise a child one truly is not ready or able for, now THERE is a longterm health challenge for women – let’s talk about THAT if you please!
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Donna Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
I like your perspective. What is more responsible: being responsible, recognizing that you cannot raise this child, or having a child as a single mom and not able to provide an adquate upbringing for that child.
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dk Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I think the point is to inform women of the facts and let them make their own decsisions
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JK Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Yes!!! Inform women of the facts! Not these ridiculous scare-tactics on studies that are not credible!
Ruth Berman Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Thanks donna. the stress of abortion as it stands today can elevate the statistics. i doubt if there are statitics related to thetime my aunt has an abortion (1955) and the abotionist was arrested while she was recuperating with her 7 years old daughter in the waitng room..to the time she died of breast cancer that mestatissiide , due to the incorrect or whatever reading she had 4 days before she discovered she had breast cancer and it was too late, in 1990. the powers that can make the changes in women’s health really don’t care.
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cmt Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Regarding stressors you identified which could have led to breast cancer, I’m wondering how these would stack up when placed next to the challenges of raising children. Regardless of whether you want to characterize the culture and society we live in as friendly or unfriendly toward women and children, the fact remains that scheduling, health, monetary concerns, emotional concerns, etc. are facts of life for each and every person. When you have kids, those issues automatically become YOUR issues. If you’re going to qualify the issues you mentioned as stressors, you’d have to consider these, also. I think you’d see the scale could tip significantly in the other direction if you wanted to go that route. So there’s really no point. Abortion leads to breast cancer because a woman’s body was not designed to have abortions.
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sandra frederiks Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
The idea that abortion causes breast cancer is absolutely ridiculous and is a view promoted by ignorant people who have believed some fundamentalist extreme viewpoint that women must be controlled. In countries where women have no access to legal abortion, how many of those women die due to butcher type abortions or suicide?
I believe that one reason fundamentalist churces, misogynists, and the Catholic church preach against abortion is that denying a woman a choice with regards to her own body, provides an abundance of unwanted, uncared for children who are very susceptible to sexual abuse and exploitation by the very people who denied the mother an abortion or suitable living conditions. Yes the stressors mentioned are facts of life for everyone, when a child is born that child requires a minumum level of care and nurturing for survival. The woman needs a certain amount of time to recover from pregnancy and childbirth. This requires some sort of financial, emotional, and physical support from others, even if those others are not related in any way to the mother. Some women are just simply not capable of enduring pregnancy and childbirth. Some pregnancy results from rape. Why is having the products of a rapists’s conception come to a full term birth so important to you? Once again, the idea that abortion leads to breast cancer makes about as much sense as bicycles lead to good fishing. This is a fear tactic to try to scare some people from having an abortion. It is unconscionable.
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Laurie Millar Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 11:15 am
I really am intrigued by the questions posed in this difficult discussion. Everyone, of course has their own opinion. But, if a link has been found there may be the underlying guilt, self-hate and lack of emotional support at the root cause. Cancer is definitely linked to a lack of self-love and women who have had to have abortions, it might seem fit that category. It does not mean they cannot heal. But, where is the support or healing for women who have had abortions? Also lacking in our society. It is like the men who come back from war….we push them aside, they push their guilt aside but it is always there…..like P.T.S.S. eating away at their health.
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Vicky nast Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 9:12 am
How about looking at THE FOOD SUPPLY? Bovine growth hormone in milk,,,Estrogen and antibiotics in our meat…Chemicals and food additives, denatured foods etc..gee,I wonder what impact this has on all cancers?.A lifetime of eating poison or an abortion procedure?HMMMM Wonder which one contributes more to cancer?
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Please send me the set of footnotes/references. I need to read the entire article!
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Where are the references referred to in this article?
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dk Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175394.php
There are many, just google abortion and breast cancer.
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dk Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175394.php
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Ok Health Freedom…If you are really about health freedom then posting such inflammatory titles that is against a part of women’s health care issues and freedom is irresponsible because this kind of thing discourages women from making responsible choices like choosing to use OC and or abortion if they can’t afford to raise a child etc. here is a link I found with info that states that abortion does not cause breast cancer. There are many risk factors involved. If you don’t like government fear mongering then don’t do the same. Just provide the facts, real facts with references.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/abortion-miscarriage
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You have numbers for footnotes here without the corresponding information. Why not provide that information to back up these claims.
I am a breast cancer survivor and have worked under a grant from the Susan G. Koman Foundation and the American Cancer Society teaching people about Breast Health Education.
I know that if this link with abortion was valid information all of these cancer organizations would be promoting the truth of this. Their silence tells me that this is simply more misinformation being perpetuated to scare women and working toward taking away their rights. This is clearly indicated by the quote regarding abortion and government funding for it.
Having said that, I do agree that oral contraceptives do increase a woman’s risk for breast cancer, especially if she takes them at a young age and smokes as well. We can clearly see that this link exists from respected studies that have been replicated.
On the contrary, I have not seen anything that positively backs up this other claim regarding abortion and breast cancer.
There is evidence showing that women who have never had children, who wait until later in life (after 30) to have children, who start menstruating at an early age (before age 12) or go through menopause later (after age 55)are at higher risk simply because of more exposure to hormones due to more menstrual cycles over their lifetimes.
I have been a long-time subscriber to your ezine and am very disappointed that you would perpetuate this obviously slanted information. This now makes me question all of the other information that you have been writing as well.
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dk Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
HFA in no uncertian terms does not disagree with a womans right to choose. We are simply reposting an article from Medical News Today a very well respected and non politcal site. The article quotes researchers from the National Cancer Institute who have previously claimed there is no link. The controversy among some of our members show why the main stream media will not discuss this topic. Should we not have posted it because it will upset some people? Should it be banned? We greatly encourage our members to do their own research and post their findings.
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Karen Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Oh, puleeze!!!! Most women who have abortions also have live births, before or after the abortion. In fact, such a large percentage of American women have had an abortion at this point, how can the NCI possibly tease out abortion as a breast cancer cause? Your site doesn’t trust the govt, why would you think all of a sudden their info is reliable? This is pure political scare tactics from the “right”.
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GG Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
It is sad that the article is only addressed towards womens responsibility. No comments indicate that the men in our society need to take more resonsibility in this issue.
It is a sad state of our culture.
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I’ve heard this abortion/breast cancer rhetoric before coming from pro-life, religious conservatives. So my question would be, “If indeed there are breast cancer repercussions from abortion, what would be the cause? Inflated Hormone Levels? As some have pointed out, Extreme Stress Levels?”
I’m actually shocked that Health Freedom Alliance printed this article on their site. It smells thick of the religious right and without any real research to corroborate the story. I do know this statement “40% higher risk of cancer” was used to scare the young girls into not ‘taking the life’ of the unborn. Seeing the venomous attitudes of these church goers, I’m certain they did not care at all about the lives or health of these girls needing/wanting the procedure.
My second question to whom ever did the studies, “Why would abortion be this 40% factor (which strangely is the same number I’ve heard from women & men picketing in front of abortion clinics in my town) and why would going full term have any less significance to breast cell structure?”
As we all know, research is usually tainted by which drug company or group is paying for whichever result they want.
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I have read before that there is an decreased risk of breast cancer with childbirth. Carrying a child does all manner of stuff to your body, and it is certainly within the realm of possibility that having children might reduce your risk of breast cancer. However, stating that their is an increased risk of breast cancer because someone has an abortion leaves open all kinds of questions that the information provided by the references cited above do not answer. This study purports to show a correlation between breast cancer and abortion. Might be, but it doesn’t mean that there is a causality. What else did they look at? How many of the women who had this cancer had carried children to term after having their abortion, and what was the correlation between carrying a child to term and the cancer? Did multiple abortions increase the risk even more? What about spontaneous abortions and miscarriages? How did these correlate with this cancer? And once again, we must remember that correlation does not prove causality. While this might have been an OK thing to report, it could have been covered much more honestly and sensitively.
Anne Johnson
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For the people looking for the references you can go to the link stated at the bottom of the article.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175394.php
References from the article:
1. Dolle J, Daling J, White E, Brinton L, Doody D, et al. Risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer in women under the age of 45 years. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(4)1157-1166.
2. “Summary Report: Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer,” U.S. National Cancer Institute, March 4, 2003. Available here.
3. Daling JR, Malone DE, Voigt LF, White E, Weiss NS. Risk of breast cancer among young women: relationship to induced abortion. J Natl Cancer Inst 1994;86:1584-1592. White E, Malone KE, Weiss NS, Daling JR. Breast cancer among young US women in relation to oral contraceptive use. J Natl Cancer Inst 1994;86:505-514.
4. Daling JR, Brinton LA, Voigt LF, et al. Risk of breast cancer among white women following induced abortion. Am J Epidemiol 1996;144:373-380.
5. Ozmen V, Ozcinar B, Karanlik H, Cabioglu N, Tukenmez M, et al. Breast cancer risk factors in Turkish women – aUniversity Hospital based nested case control study. World J of Surg Oncol 2009;7:37.
6. Xing P, Li J, Jin F. A case-control study of reproductive factors associated with subtypes of breast cancer in Northeast China. Humana Press, e-publication online September 2009.
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I am a natural childbirth educator. If you study all the hormones changes that take place during menstruation, pregnancy, (and lactation)in a woman’s body, the results of this study make logical sense. A woman’s body was designed to prepare for conception monthly. Other studies have shown women are healthier when they have multiple pregnancies because it gives the body a break from ovulating and has beneficial hormonal changes. These changes culminate at BIRTH-the highest levels of oxytocin “the feel-good love hormone” released during orgasm spike to their highest level moments before birth (provided mom has not received drugs/chemicals to alter this normal release of hormones). This hormone is crucial for mom to bond to baby. Animal mothers reject their offspring when disturbed during birth and normal hormonal changes do not occur. Many researchers-with liberal and conservative views-are studying the changes happening in women, mothering and our society because of the lack of these beneficial hormonal changes due to chemical augmentation/interventions of birth.
There is also studies which suggest casual sex is inhibiting our abilities to bond to others and have lasting relationships. These “love hormones” for both men and women play huge roles in our psyche as well as our physical health. We can deny our physiology all we want, try to change social structure to meet our beliefs, worldviews, or politically correct agendas. I agree we have to be cautious of slanted or biased research but it should not surprise us that real scientific data is continuing to show that altering our intended biological functions will have profound effects on our individual health and the health of our society as a whole.
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Paula Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
This information about a correlation between abortion and breast cancer is most intriguing. I do not wish to dismiss this statistic to protect women from alarming facts.
Very important is the risk involved with taking OCs which is indisputable. All women need to understand the huge risk involved with OCs.
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sjw Reply:
January 20th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
“Real scientific data”, my behind.
So according to your “studies”, we should all start popping out multiple offspring in order to keep physically healthy. Riiiiiight. (Cite your sources.)
However, your use of the usual dismissive “political correctness” right-wing meme proves you have a political agenda with your comments, and it’s not a beneficial one for women, either.
First of all, physiology/hormonal fluctuations are NOT the only factors in human behavior. If they were, rape would not be a crime, and PMS would actually be a valid defense for murder. Physiology and hormones are not the whole story, and to assert that they are IS A LIE.
“Animal mothers reject their offspring when disturbed during birth and normal hormonal changes do not occur.” I am not an animal, I am a human being – with a far larger and more complex cerebral cortex (among other things) than other “animals”. In other words, comparing apples and oranges doesn’t make your point very well.
Who are you to define “nature”? Women’s biology is not destiny, and you imply that going against “nature” by not becoming a mother (either by having an abortion, using BC consistently, or NOT GIVING BIRTH) is automatically going to result in societal dysfunction or destruction. We had plenty of societal dysfunction prior to the invention of the first BC devices in 1960, and it wasn’t due to “the lack of these beneficial hormonal changes due to chemical augmentation/interventions of birth” LOL!
The body-mind link is not so clear cut or causal as you assert, and therefore not using the uterus as you think “nature” intended is just so much anti-woman nonsense. Correlation is NOT causality.
Again, you have a right to an opinion, and a right to express it, but other women’s decisions are not under your control and never will be. And drawing preliminary conclusions distorting the meaning of study data is not adding to your credibility. Cherry-picking facts to support your personal bias DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE.
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I am a practioner who works with all manner of women’s issues. I have watched many women struggle with the psychic consequences of abortions over the years–coming out of denying their essential feminine biology. I have seen many hormonal imbalances like hypo thyroid, or infertility come out of a long history of early OC. My conclusions didn’t come from a “scientific study” with a control group, just anecdotal patterns, but so strong and common as to be undeniable. Does everybody react the same way? No. Can it be a violent and emotionally painful solution to a very sad situation to be in? Yes. . . I have seen cancers in body parts that were abused, underused, or overused. Don’t you think if the body was designed for breasts to feed infants, and that infant is removed during and causing hormonal upheaval and some degree of relationship stress, that the breast might be 1 possible body part that registers the hormonal and immune system imbalance? We can’t just pretend the most core system of the body for survival of the species isn’t profoundly affected by actions that go against nature. I just buried a friend who had multiple abortions, and died of ovarian cancer. I am not a scientist, just an observer of the human condition. . .
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sjw Reply:
January 20th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Absolute disingenuous hogwash.
You have a political agenda with your comments, and it’s not a particularly nice one.
First of all, anecdotal evidence is not scientifically valid.
Scientific and statistical validity are the point of this article – and there’s far more scientific and statistical evidence underlying the notion that the vast majority of women are RELIEVED when they obtain an abortion, not stressed or wracked with guilt eventually resulting in disease.
Secondly, who are you to define “nature”? Women’s biology is not destiny, and you imply that going against “nature” by not becoming a mother (either by having an abortion, using BC consistently, or remaining childfree) is automatically going to result in disease. The body-mind link is not so clear cut or causal as you assert, and therefore not using the uterus as you think “nature” intended is just so much nonsense. Correlation is NOT causality.
You have a right to an opinion, and a right to express it, but other women’s decisions not under your control and never will be.
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Abortion is completely unnatural and severely traumatizing to a woman’s body. This is fact, aside from any political or religious ideology. It makes sense that if women don’t follow a physical biological imperative (again, outside of cultural expectation) that the body will react.
There is nothing wrong with deciding not to birth babies, but don’t be in denial about the possible consequences of artificial birth control, abortion etc. and going against biology. This denial is just another layer of disconnection from nature and the planet. Women are animals…primates…mammals…that eat, sleep, have sex, birth, nurse and bleed every month. We experience natural cycles within our bodies in concert with the moon. When a baby is born through c-section… consequences. When a baby is not breastfed… consequences. when a baby is is separated from its mother…consequences; primal biological issues. When a woman ingests hormonal birth control pills, or has an abortion…consequences. Neither right nor wrong; when you interfere in a natural process the possibility of a negative outcome increases. We need to just collectively own this, so women can make informed decisions. I’m as “liberal” and “feminist” as they come, but denying the reality of our bodies is unwise.
I would love to see as much passion devoted to the inclusion of midwifery and home birth services in “reproductive rights.” women should be able to give birth where and with whom they choose.
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