Here’s her request for documentation and my response:
Hello Nellie,
I hope you are well.
We are considering running your Public Pulse letter about abortion but in order to do so, I’d like you to provide the sources for this sentence: “Studies show 63% of abortive women feel coerced and suicide rates are six times higher after abortion, which is also linked to breast cancer & infertility.”
I could not find a source for the feelings of 63% of women who had abortion. I did find a source for higher incidence of suicide from this anti-abortion group, although that did not have the six times higher figure. We’d also like to be able to site your sources for the breast cancer and infertility claims.
If you can provide those sources to me within the next few hours, I can edit that section of your letter and we can run those claims. Otherwise, I’d have to cut the claims.
Thank you,
Rachel
..............................
My response:
The feelings of coercion and suicide rates are both from https://www.theunchoice.com/pdf/FactSheets/ForcedAbortions.pdf , with the specific citations being (respectively)
VM Rue et. al., “Induced abortion and traumatic stress: A preliminary comparison of American and Russian women,” Medical Science Monitor
10(10): SR5-16 (2004) and
M Gissler et. al., “Pregnancy Associated Deaths in Finland 1987-1994 — definition problems and benefits of record linkage,” Acta Obsetricia et
Gynecologica Scandinavica 76:651-657 (1997); and M. Gissler, “Injury deaths, suicides and homicides associated with pregnancy, Finland 1987-
2000,” European J. Public Health 15(5):459-63 (2005
Regarding the abortion-breast cancer link one meta-study is at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10552-013-0325-7
You can also see many, many more studies cited at https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/link-between-abortion—breast-cancer-11985
(yes, it’s a Catholic site but the sources cited are scientific sources, not Catholic)
For the infertility risk see footnotes 19-22 at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7333799/#R19 (I’ll copy them here):
19. Trichopoulos D, Handanos N, Danezis J, et al.. Induced abortion and secondary infertility. Br J Obstet Gynaecol 1976;83:645–50. 10.1111/j.1471-0528.1976.tb00904.x [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
20. Tzonou A, Hsieh CC, Trichopoulos D, et al.. Induced abortions, miscarriages, and tobacco smoking as risk factors for secondary infertility. J Epidemiol Community Health 1993;47:36–9. 10.1136/jech.47.1.36 [PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
21. Koster W. Linking two opposites of pregnancy loss: induced abortion and infertility in Yoruba Society, Nigeria. Soc Sci Med 2010;71:1788–95. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.06.033 [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
22. Hamy A-S, Mayenga J-M, Grefenstette I, et al.. [A study comparing previous induced abortion rates in populations of newly delivered women and infertile women]. Gynecol Obstet Fertil 2008;36:395–9. 10.1016/j.gyobfe.2008.02.004 [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
The methods whereby abortion impacts infertility are already known. Some of them are: uterine perforation or infection and incompetent cervix causing premature births in future pregnancies which also increases the risk of infertility as well as damage to the premature children,
At https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/20/2/262/663622 it discusses the fertility risks posed by intrauterine adhesions, which are more common after a D&C procedure. Although it mostly focuses on miscarriage (spontaneous abortion), it especially notes that a D&C procedure is a risk factor, and that D&C procedures are used in 30-50% of miscarriages AFTER mifepristone and misoprostol have been used to evacuate the uterus. Of course, mifepristone and misoprostol are also used to induce abortion. I understand medical abortions using these medications are used for more than 50% of abortions now.
I’m sorry this has to be so wordy. It is a complex issue that has had much discussion, but what the research articles say is totally different than what you’ll read in articles you find in a Google search. That’s because the issue has been politicized so badly. One loudly-acclaimed pro-abortion researcher lost all her credibility after she conducted a meta-study finding the abortion-breast cancer link. She wanted to know the truth because her sister died of breast cancer.
Thank you for checking this out. Please let me know if you need anything more. I wish this issue was not reduced to angry buzz-words going back and forth between highly-polarized sides.
Thanks!
Nellie
Here is what she wanted me to agree to having published under my name:
Abortion should be rare and safe. Abortion access supporters are trying to place on the November ballot an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution which in effect guarantees, “the fundamental right to abortion without interference from the state or its political subdivisions until fetal viability.”
Allowing only doctors to perform abortions, parental consent, informed consent, waiting periods, access to ER’s, and mandatory reporting of statutory rape, and fetal parts harvesting are all too “restrictive” to Planned Parenthood, which is now being sued by the Missouri attorney general for allegedly helping minors travel out of state for abortions. Studies from pro-life sources say that many women feel coerced into having abortions and that women who have had abortions have higher suicide rates than women who have not.
This amendment only helps people get rich and male abusers.
Protect women and girls. If you’ve signed this initiative, please ask the Secretary of State to remove your name.