Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis
[1] This hypothesis is at odds with mainstream scientific opinion and is rejected by major medical professional organizations;[1][2] despite this, it continues to be widely propagated as pseudoscience, typically in service of an anti-abortion agenda.
[6][11][12][13][14][23] Joel Brind, a faculty member at Baruch College in the Department of Natural Sciences,[34] is the primary advocate of an abortion–breast cancer ("ABC") link.
He therefore collaborated with two anti-abortion physicians and a statistician to publish a 1996 article in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health,[36] arguing that induced abortion was a risk factor for breast cancer.
"[35] Brind's paper was criticized in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute for ignoring the role of response bias and for a "blurring of association with causation.
Brind blames the lack of support for his findings on a conspiracy, arguing that the NCI and other major medical organizations are engaged in a "cover-up" for the purpose of "protecting the abortion industry".
[44][45] Bernstein et al. independently observed a reduced breast cancer risk when women were injected with hCG for weight loss or infertility treatment.
Their 1973 paper published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute inaccurately[5] concluded that "where a relationship was observed, abortion was associated with increased, not decreased, risk.
[51] In 1996, Brind et al. published a meta-analysis of 23 studies which reported a positive association existed between induced abortion and breast cancer risk.
[56] A 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies found insufficient evidence to support an association between induced or spontaneous abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.
Some anti-abortion activists grew more aggressive and violent in the face of political abandonment, culminating with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993 and the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994.
These focused on legal tactics, including lobbying against late-term abortions and access to mifepristone and demanding legislation based on the purported ABC link.
[59] In 2005, a Canadian anti-abortion organization put up billboards in Alberta with large pink ribbons and the statement: "Stop the Cover-Up", in reference to the ABC hypothesis.
[66] In 1999, shortly after the House debated FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, U.S. Representative Dave Weldon wrote a "Dear Colleague" letter, enclosing an article from John Kindley.
According to Appel, "[i]f the roughly fifty million abortions that have occurred in the United States since Roe v. Wade had all ended in full-term deliveries, approximately five hundred additional women would have died during childbirth.
"[70] In May 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Charmaine Yoest, an anti-abortion activist and proponent of the abortion-breast cancer link, to the post of assistant secretary for public affairs in the Department of Health And Human Services.
The previous NCI analysis had concluded that, while some question regarding an association between abortion and breast cancer existed prior to the mid-1990s, a number of large and well-regarded studies had resolved the issue in the negative.
The Bush administration removed this analysis and replaced it with the following: [T]he possible relationship between abortion and breast cancer has been examined in over thirty published studies since 1957.
[16]This alteration, which suggested that there was scientific uncertainty on the ABC issue, prompted an editorial in The New York Times describing it as an "egregious distortion" and a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services from members of Congress.
[16][72] In response to the alteration the NCI convened a three-day consensus workshop entitled Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer on 24–26 February 2003.
[73] In January 2000, Amy Jo Kjolsrud (née Mattson), an anti-abortion counselor, sued the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota, alleging false advertising.
[74] The suit, Kjolsrud v. MKB Management Corporation, alleged that the clinic was misleading women by distributing a brochure quoting a National Cancer Institute fact sheet on the ABC hypothesis.
[76] Kindley also wrote a 1998 Wisconsin Law Review article outlining the viability of medical malpractice lawsuits based upon not informing patients considering abortion about the ABC hypothesis.
