I see one side offer 30 + Studies including US lead studies. I see the other side offer one or two studies from a socialist state done in '97!
I would rather not stake my life on one study from a socialist state whose advancements in anything leave much to be desired.
You obviously have no idea of whom you speak of when you degrade these 30+ studies. You have an ax to grind and you went off half cocked. At least find out what you are talking about before you give us your reasoned and well thought out debate!
Eugenia E. Calle, PhD; Director of Analytic Epidemiology with the American Cancer Society
Q: Can having an abortion cause or contribute to breast cancer?
Dr. Calle: The short answer to the question is: no. Of course, as with any answer based on scientific studies, there are nuances that need to be explained in order to give a complete answer.
Induced abortion (probably what most people consider "abortion," in that a woman chooses to end a pregnancy) and spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, both cause the interruption of hormones which has been hypothesized to increase ones’ risk of developing breast cancer. Stillborn births, in which the fetus dies after five months gestation while still in the uterus, may cause hormonal fluctuations in the mother that are abnormal when compared to a normal, full-term pregnancy. All of these situations have been studied as to what effect they may have on the woman’s risk of developing breast cancer later in life. There is no suggestion of a link between breast cancer and miscarriage or stillbirths. Until recently, the research has not been quite so clear with induced abortions and breast cancer.
Prior to 1973, induced abortions were illegal in the United States, with the exception of some states. Therefore, when researchers inquire about a woman’s reproductive past, women may be unwilling to disclose the fact that they have had an illegal abortion. Even after abortion was legalized, it is still a very personal, private matter that many women are hesitant to disclose. In fact, studies have shown that healthy women significantly underreport their histories of induced abortions. In contrast, women with breast cancer are more likely to accurately report their reproductive histories because they are literally searching their memories for anything that may have contributed to their disease.
The likelihood that women who have breast cancer will give a more complete account of their abortions than women who do not have breast cancer is called "recall bias" and it can seriously undermine the accuracy of study results. Most early studies of abortion and breast cancer employed a study design that is very prone to recall bias. In such studies, women with and without breast cancer were asked to report past abortions. The frequency of abortions in women with breast cancer and the disease-free controls was compared. It is likely that the small increases in breast cancer risk observed in many of these studies were not authentic findings due to recall bias.
A study design that is less prone to bias is a prospective study, in which a population of women who are cancer-free are asked about their past abortions and then followed for the occurrence of new cancer. In this type of study, there is no opportunity for the disease process itself to influence one’s memory of past abortions or willingness to report past abortions.
Some prospective studies have solved the problem of recall bias by using innovative ways to document induced abortions. A recent study used birth certificates of children born to women with breast cancer to count those women who had had induced abortions (the number of previous pregnancies and their outcomes were listed on these birth certificates). This study found no increase in breast cancer risk in women whose abortion was eventually followed by a live birth.
The largest, and probably the most reliable, study of this topic was conducted recently in Denmark. In that study, all Danish women born between 1935 and 1978 (1.5 million women) were linked with The National Registry of Induced Abortions and with the Danish Cancer Registry. So, all of the information about their abortions and their breast cancer that came from registries was very complete and was not influenced by recall bias. After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found that induced abortion(s) had no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer. The size of this study and the manner in which it was conducted provides substantial evidence that induced abortion does not affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.
There are other, smaller studies pointing to the fact that abortion does not cause, nor contribute to breast cancer.
At the present time, the scientific evidence does not support a causal association between induced abortion and breast cancer.