By Mona Charen, Creators Syndicate
January 1995 – For years, I have received mail from pro-life readers beseeching me to write about the link between breast cancer and abortion. Each time, I vowed to look into it, though I was skeptical, and then unwisely let the matter drop.
Recently, however, I happened to hear a cancer specialist from the National Institutes of Health giving advice over the radio to women callers. He said some things that are dispiriting ‑ for example, he confirmed the reports that say even one or two alcoholic drinks a day (including beer and wine) dramatically increase one’s risk of breast cancer.
But he said one thing that was a shocker. In response to a caller’s question, he acknowledged that there is an undeniable link between abortions, particularly abortions which occur prior to a full-term pregnancy, and breast cancer.
This must be the most underreported story in America today. We are bombarded almost daily by media attention to breast cancer and its risk factors. We hear stories about the possible risks of birth control pills, alcohol, high voltage wires and diet and about the benefits of exercise, thinness and self-examination. But there is almost nothing reported about the greater risk faced by women who either suffer early miscarriages or elect to have first-trimester abortions.
There is no scientific certainty about how abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. Speculation centers on the life cycle of breast tissue. Before a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, her breasts are in an immature state. Under the influence of the hormones of early pregnancy, the breasts undergo massive growth, readying the network of milk ducts, which develop new structures called “end buds.”
During the second trimester of pregnancy, the hormone balance in the body changes, and the growth phase of breast tissue ends, to be replaced by cell differentiation and maturation. If the pregnancy is followed by lactation, the breast has reached its full maturity. (Studies have shown that women who breast-feed their babies, especially if they are young when they give birth, are less likely to get breast cancer than those who do not.)
Why should abortion (or miscarriage, also a risk factor) make women vulnerable to later cancer? The speculation is that the onslaught of hormones that causes cells to reproduce in the breast, if halted abruptly, before the cells have reached their full destiny in delivery and lactation, leaves them permanently liable to divide uncontrollably (which is cancer).
No fewer than 24 published studies have shown a link between early abortion or miscarriage and breast cancer. Pro- choice groups have dismissed these studies as flawed, citing “recall bias.” Women with cancer, they assert, are more likely to admit to early abortions than women without it. But several studies have been longitudinal (following a group over time) and therefore have not relied on memory at all.
According to the available research, women who have had miscarriages or abortions before a full-term pregnancy have a 50% greater chance of getting cancer than those who did not. The greater the number of miscarriages or abortions, the greater the risk.
Causation is always a ticklish subject in medicine. People are not laboratory animals, and it is difficult to isolate the factors that contribute to disease ‑ or happiness, or wealth, for that matter.
But some of the coincidences regarding abortion are startling. Scientists and epidemiologists have been puzzled about the relatively sudden, worldwide epidemic of breast cancer. For example, Jewish women are considered to be at higher risk for breast cancer than the general population. Could that be because many Jews have a permissive attitude toward abortion? Or consider the case of the old Soviet Union. Women in the U.S.S.R. had difficulty gaining access to contraceptives, but abortion was widely available. Between 1960 and 1987, the rate of breast cancer among Russian, Estonian and Georgian women tripled.
After Washington state began to provide public funding for abortions in 1970, the breast cancer rate among the poor rose by 53%, while the rate for rich women dropped by 1%.
If serious scientists agree that a link exists between abortion and breast cancer ‑ what, except blind ideology, can account for media silence on the issue? 
