Study Confirms Abortion Triples Breast Cancer Risk Among Sri Lanka Women

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new study coming from researchers in Sri Lanka finds women who had abortions more than triple their breast cancer risk compared with wome who carry their pregnancy to term. The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology and found a 3.42 odds ratio against women having abortions compared with those who kept their baby.

Abortion was the most significant factor in the study on breast cancer risk and researchers found a significantly reduced risk associated with prolonged duration of breastfeeding a newborn.

The Sri Lankan study is the fourth epidemiological study in fourteen months to report an abortion-breast cancer link, including studies from the U.S., China and Turkey.

Other studies have shown the protective effect a full-term pregnancy has for women.

In this case, having a baby and subsequent breast feeding between 12-23 months after birth had researchers finding a 66.3% risk reduction in comparison to those who had never breastfed and those who had breastfed between 0 and 11 months.

The risk reduction climbed to 87.4% for the 24-35 months group and 94% for the 36-47 months group.

"Obviously, women who abort forfeit the protective effect of breastfeeding," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, a gorup that educates women about the breast cancer risk from abortions.

"The loss of that protective effect is incurred in addition to the effect of abortion leaving the breasts with more places for cancers to start," she said.

"According to the researchers, 'mammography is not widely available for routine screening' in Sri Lanka. Therefore, health professionals must emphasize disease prevention," Malec added. "It is criminal that the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) has covered up this risk for over a half century. Uncle Sam is abusing women by concealing the risk."

In the one from the Unite States, Louise Brinton, a NCI branch chief, served as co-author.

She and her colleagues admitted that "...induced abortion and oral contraceptive use were associated with increased risk of breast cancer." The authors cited a statistically significant 40% increased risk of breast cancer following an abortion.

"It's becoming increasingly difficult for the NCI to keep its fingers and toes in the dike," said Malec, "especially since many researchers in other parts of the world do not depend on the agency for grants."

The new study article is titled, "Prolonged breastfeeding reduces risk of breast cancer in Sri Lankan women: A case-control study."

De Silva M, Senarath U, Gunatilake M, Lokuhetty D. Prolonged breastfeeding reduces risk of breast cancer in Sri Lankan women: a case-control study. Cancer Epidemiol 2010;34(3):267-73. Abstract available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20338838

Ther's been a bunch of articles posted to Free Republic in the past, explaining a true physiological causal relationship between abortio and breast cancer. Here's an excerpt from one article:

"Curiously, the establishment on the other side of the ocean is much less reluctant to recognize the link. In April 2000, Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists acknowledged that studies demonstrating the abortion-breast cancer link "could not be disregarded."1 Writing in the London Times a year later, Dr. Thomas Stuttaford declared that "an unusually high proportion" of the women diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.K. each year "had an abortion before eventually starting a family. Such women are up to four times more likely to develop breast cancer."2

"There are solid physiological reasons for the association between induced abortion and the later development of breast cancer which have to do with the hormonal effects of pregnancy on a woman’s breast tissue. A surge of the hormone oestradiol at conception reaches twentyfold in the first trimester, triggering an explosive growth of breast tissue—a period when breast cells are most likely to be affected by carcinogens. When a woman completes her first full pregnancy, further hormonal changes propel these newly produced breast cells through a state of differentiation, a natural maturing process that greatly reduces the risk of future breast cancer.3

"An early, abrupt termination of pregnancy by abortion arrests this process before the cancer-reducing evolution of hormone release can occur, leaving a large population of dangerously-stimulated breast tissue cells in place, enormously raising future cancer risk. On the other hand, ". . . an early first, full-term pregnancy would provide the greatest protection against breast cancer by drastically reducing, early on, the presence of undifferentiated and hence vulnerable breast cells, thereby decreasing the risk of subsequent transformation."4

"A fascinating animal study supports this line of reasoning. Two groups of rats were exposed to a chemical carcinogen before mating. The group that carried a first pregnancy to term developed mammary tumours at a rate of six per cent. The group whose pregnancies were aborted, however, developed mammary tumours at an astounding rate of 78 per cent.5

"These are among several dramatic findings dredged up from the obscurity of scientific journals and presented in Women’s Health After Abortion: The Medical and Scientific Evidence, a new book I co-authored with Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy.6 In it, we review and summarize over 500 studies which have appeared in medical and professional journals, most of them over the past twenty years. What follows here is a brief overview of our work...."

For more info, here's a link.

It's my understanding that the causative factor has to do with the levels of hormones associated with pregnancy. In a normal pregancy, and even if there is a miscarriage, the hormones naturally rise and fall.

With an abortion, the hormone in early pregnancy is cut off, when the baby is taken, and the body doesn't have time to naturally reduce the level. This increases the chances of a woman developing breast cancer, if that abortion takes place during her first preganancy. Interestingly, nuns, and women who have never had a child, are at a similar, if not as increased risk for breast cancer. Again, it has to do with the hormone levels, and the fact that the women who had never become pregnant didn't have the protective benefits of the hormone that brings down breastmilk, and continues to be produced as long as a child breastfeeds.

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