Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Abortion Ups Breast Cancer Risk

I just saw a link to the over on a Catholic View. While I haven't had time to write a NFP post lately this article brought the topic back to the front of my mind. The article isn't directly about NFP (it's just the topic my mind jumped too). It's actually about abortion and the increased risk of breast cancer in women who've had an abortion. She also found that having a miscarriage usually has little or no effect, while full term pregnancy lowers the risk.

Surgeon Says Abortion Ups Breast Cancer Risk, Full-Term Pregnancy Helps Lower It
by Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com Editor
September 8, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A prominent breast cancer surgeon and professor has written a new article for a medical publication saying that abortion increases a woman's risk of contracting breast cancer. On the other hand, miscarriage has no effect while a full-term pregnancy lowers the breast cancer risk.

Dr. Angela Lanfranchi is a surgeon who deals with breast cancer and is also a Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute.

She published a paper this week in the medical journal Linacre Quarterly that shows how different pregnancy outcomes influence breast cancer risk.

Citing 52 years of breast cancer research, she said the evidence shows that, during pregnancy, unborn children "produce hormones that mature 85 percent of the mother's breast tissue into cancer-resistant breast tissue."

This accounts for the protective effect of full term pregnancy (FTP) that experts universally recognize.

According to Lanfranchi, a delayed first FTP is associated with a temporary risk increase because it lengthens the period during the reproductive years when nearly all of the breast lobules are immature and cancer-susceptible and exposed to the cancer-causing effects of estrogen during menstrual cycles.

However, in terms of lifetime risk, the mother will eventually benefit from the protective effect of FTP, provided it lasted at least 32 weeks.

At the same time, the physician says sort pregnancies like abortions that end before 32 weeks, except for first trimester miscarriages, leave the breasts only "partially matured" and "with more places for cancers to start."

"Induced abortion is a recognized cause of premature birth.... and prematurity more than doubles breast cancer risk if it is before 32 weeks," Lanfranchi writes.

Full Story Here.

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