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What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in Education?
Toppling Dominos
Anti-Christians don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of Secularism
"Don't Impose Your Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death Warrant?
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"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
Christians Losing America
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Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay Marriage
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Vouchers Revisited
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Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
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More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Incarnational Approach
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Things Your Media Never Told You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them.  How Else Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of Nullity?
Dutch Treats
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Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality, and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
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Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
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"You Taught me well, Mommie dearest"
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"These are the Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few are Married
"...Prepare him for additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a Person?
The Point of a Point of View
Politically Correct, Morally Depraved
Population Controllers out of Control
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Social Progress through Immorality
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Reason and Faith
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Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

Breast cancer will strike one out of every eight women in the United States. This is double the incidence since 1940 and one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world although international rates have climbed over the last twenty years. It should be of interest to the medical profession and women to know the reason for the increase. An interesting explanation for the increase is to be found in an article by Lucille Canty in Oncology and Nursing Forum (Vol. 24, No. 6, 1997).

Researchers have defined many risk factors. These include increasing age (40 years or older), early age at menarche (first menstruation of an individual), late age at menopause, nulliparity (not having any offspring), late age at first live birth (over 30), and family history. Genetics is estimated to be responsible for only 5% of all cases. Harvard researchers concluded that a high-fat diet was not associated with breast cancer risk.

One risk factor that has been overlooked or discounted is induced abortion. Researchers have found that first full term pregnancy actually increased protection against development of breast cancer. Researchers have found that nulliparous women’s breasts have type 1 lobules, which are the ones most vulnerable to formation of cancer cells. As pregnancy progresses in parous women there is a corresponding progression in the formation of type 2, 3, and 4 lobules. The type 4 lobules are the ones that are most resistant to formation of cancer cells. On the other hand if there is an induced abortion there is an abrupt halt in physiologic changes of the mother that has been described as a kind of "hormonal blow." This accounts for the increased risk of breast cancer because of effects on the endocrine, immune, and neurologic systems. The deleterious effects are increased by multiple abortions. It is theorized that in abortion the growth stimulating effects of an estrogen surge may cause primitive or abnormal cells to become potentially cancerous.

Many studies have found an increased risk of breast cancer by induced abortion. On the other hand some studies have found no risk or decreased risk. A highly publicized study on Swedish women funded by the Family Health International North Carolina, a population control organization, stated without explanation that induced abortion did not increase risk of breast cancer and that a reduced risk could be likely. It did not take into account that most Swedish women have children prior to having abortions and so have received the protection against cancer described above. A study of Danish women found that there was no risk of breast cancer from induced abortion and since it covered 1.5 million women its conclusions were deemed to be definitive enough to put an end to the debate in the United States. But the Danish study contained several flaws. The authors included 321 women diagnosed with breast cancer cases as early as 1968, but abortion information only covered the period from 1973. During that five-year period more than 60,000 abortions were recorded. Failure to report the pre-1973 abortion rates potentially lowered the reported risk. Another defect in the Danish study is that 358,000 of the 1.5 million included in the study were under the age of 25. Breast cancer in women under age 25 is rare and so the inclusion of this large segment of women could skew the results by seeming to lower the potential risk. Breast cancer may be caused by induced abortion but it may be 30 years before this becomes evident. The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing in Denmark.

A study by J. R. Daling et al. In 1994 funded by the American Cancer Society would seem to be free of financial conflict of interest and also of ideological bias related to abortion. That study found that women under 19 who have abortions have a 150% increased risk for breast cancer and induced abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy increases any woman’s risk of breast cancer before age 45 by 800%. Daling has stated that the full impact of abortion as a risk factor in breast cancer has yet to occur. She stated, "Only future studies will tell what will happen to these women as they reach ages of highest cancer incidence. We do not have that experience yet as abortion has only been legal since 1970 in Washington and nationally since 1973." Even if the increased risk is a modest 50%, at a rate of 1.5 million abortions a year, 40,000-50,000 additional cases of breast cancer could occur as the post-Roe v. Wade women reach the age where cancer incidence increases. If the death rate from induced abortion is approximately 1,500 per 100,000, a woman is 300 times more likely to die from breast cancer than from childbirth, even adjusting for a 75% breast cancer cure rate. So the nasty little secret is out—abortion is a significant factor in the increase of incidence of breast cancer.

With at least one of every four U.S. women having an abortion in her life it is rather easy to predict that the incidence of breast cancer will increase. Most breast cancer risk factors are beyond human control but induced abortion is a matter of choice and, as such, this element of risk could be diminished. Once again it is clear that good morals is also good medicine. We may practice immorality and deny that it is evil, but we cannot repeal the effects of our evil. The first full term pregnancy in young women appears to be a good protection against breast cancer. The interruption of that process by induced abortion seems to be a significant factor in bringing it on. We cannot avoid harm to our souls by doing evil. It would appear that frequently we also cannot avoid harm to our bodies.