See No Evil, Hear No Evil
by Tim Drake

The Journal of the American Medical Association cited a study Wednesday which confirms what many researchers have long known - that birth control pills may increase the risk of breast cancer, especially among women
with a strong history of the disease.

The Journal reports that specifically among sisters and daughters of women with breast cancer, users of the pill are three times more likely than nonusers to get the disease. None of this is new, however.

In an age that seems to value informed consent, one has to wonder why it has taken the medical community - and the media - so long to publicly recognize this risk. The first link in the chain was discovered as early as 1957, when a study found that women who had abortions doubled their risk of developing breast cancer. By 1970, the medical community had recognized the fact that pregnancy helped lower the eisk of breast cancer. A World Health Organization study of women from seven different countries, released at that time, found that women who carried pregnancies to term had lower risks of contracting the disease.

Joel Brind, Ph.D., professor of biology and endocrinology and founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, has led research on the abortion-breast cancer link. He has described abortion as the single most avoidable risk factor in breast cancer prevention. Not surprisingly, his early attempts to draw attention to the link were ignored. It was not until 1994, when the medical journals Lancet and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published data confirming his research, that those outside the medical community took notice.

The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute has gathered the following data:

. 13 of 14 studies since 1957 show more breast cancer among American women who chose abortion (27 of 33 studies worldwide).

. The only study on American women that relied entirely on medical abortion records reported a 90 percent increased risk of breast cancer among women who had chosen abortion.

. Planned Parenthood's abortion experts admit that young women who terminate their first pregnancy are more likely to develop breast cancer than those who carry their first pregnancy to term.

. A woman who is pregnant when diagnosed with breast cancer, or who becomes pregnant after breast cancer, is much more likely to be cured if she delivers the baby rather than has an abortion.

. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has acknowledged the validity of Brind's 1996 finding that women who abort their babies are at 30 percent greater risk of developing breast cancer.

Concerns about contraceptive hormones' link to breast cancer were first raised back in 1972, when a series of animal research studies demonstrated a connection.

After attending a 1993 conference, Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., picked up on Brind's research in an attempt to disprove the claim of a contraceptive-breast cancer link. The results of his work are available in the recent book Breast Cancer: Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill, published by One More Soul. Kahlenborn first discovered, five years into his study, that it was impossible to deny the link between abortion and breast cancer. He then found that women who had taken the oral contraceptive pill prior to the birth of their first child were at a nearly 40 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer. Those who had taken the pill for four or more years prior to the birth of their first child saw their risk increase to 72 percent. And when abortion was factored in, the risk was even greater.

Kahlenborn suggests that the risk is enhanced among women with higher-than-ordinary risk factors to begin with, such as those who are childless, African-American or who possess faulty protective genes such as BRCA-1 and BRCA-2.

The indictment is not reserved for oral contraceptives alone. A National Health Organization study shows that women who have been injected with the long-lasting Depo-Provera for at least two years before the age of 25 have a 190 percent or more increased risk of developing breast cancer.

To fully understand the medical link between hormonal contraceptive use and breast cancer one must first understand the function of breast tissue cells. The female breast requires a proper balance of the female sexual hormones estrogen and progesterone in order to develop normally. When exposed to synthetic hormones such as those found in oral contraceptives, or to a rapid fall in hormone levels brought on by an induced abortion, breast tissue cell division increases, placing women at a greater risk for developing breast cancer.

Dr. Kahlenborn explains that contraceptive hormones and normal pregnancy cause breast tissue cells to multiply, resulting in new immature breast cells. A complete pregnancy allows these cells to mature completely, whereas contraceptive hormones and abortion leave them immature and prone to cancerous mutation.

Not only have abortion and contraceptive use increased since their availability, but breast cancer rates have increased dramatically over the past four decades. Kahlenborn believes that at least 10,000 women die each year as a result of breast cancer caused by abortion, and thousands more die from breast cancer brought on by the use of oral contraceptives. Nevertheless, a deafening silence continues among researchers, the medical community, the media, and government agencies.

If such a causal relationship were demonstrated between breast cancer and a dietary agent, action would be swift and severe. But because the apparent cause incriminates the abortion and contraceptive industry, the collective silence continues, along with the breast cancer deaths, which now number in excess of 43,000 annually.

How many more women need to die before all women are informed of such risks? If the pro-abortion forces are truly pro-woman, truly pro-choice, they will disclose - immediately - these risks, and thus give women the information they need to make informed choices. Failing to do so will almost certainly result in a class-action lawsuit that will make the tobacco industry settlement pale in comparison.

The willful and systematic censoring of such information must end. Women, doctors, pharmacists, teachers, and legislators need to know what the evidence clearly suggests - that for the sake of sex on demand without strings and without responsibility, women are destroying not just their babies' lives, but their own as well.

This article originally appeared at www.e3mil.com and was reprinted with permission.

Tim Drake is features correspondent with the National Catholic Register  and managing editor of Catholic.net. He is the author of "There We Stood, Here We Stand: 11 Lutherans Rediscover their Catholic Roots".  Email Tim.