For easing newcomers along , please consult the glossary of terms that I’ve written to make the terminology very understandable. Also, consult the post that explains the essential background
As I have moved forward with this project of reporting the link between induced abortion and breast cancer, I’ve realized that it involves presenting an enormous body of scientific literature to a general audience of people who were wise enough to steer clear of science as a profession. Science has its own culture fraught with politics, egos, competition for glory, grants, publications, promotions, and awards. Scientists are not saints in lab coats. Far from it. The best of us adhere to the ethical precepts that are meant to guide research , publication, and interpretation for the public.
As this project has developed, I have presented a representative sample of the various elements that comprise the debate and its foundations.
1. Normal breast physiology.
2. The effects of estrogen on breast physiology and pathophysiology.
3. The protective effects of full term pregnancy and breastfeeding.
4. The role of abortion within the context of 1-3 above.
5. The debate over recall bias.
6. The debate over retrospective vs. prospective studies
7. The debate over relative risk size and significance.
8. The politics of data interpretation vis abortion and oral contraceptives.
Admittedly, I have presented a few offerings in each area in an attempt to present the reader with a sense of the landscape. In doing so, I have attempted to integrate each piece of the puzzle, explaining its place and its relationship to the whole.
And that’s all that I have done so far.
As we progress, I shall continue to move about the landscape with a few articles in a row on one topic and then transition into a few on the next, rather than present everything on one topic, then everything on the next, etc. This would be easiest from a thematic organizational perspective, but would kill me with its repetitiveness.
Perhaps I am mistaken in this approach, and as in all things I welcome any and all feedback. However, familiarity with the integrated nature of the material seems to require the approach I have settled on.
Also, to those who think that I should only present the papers explicitly linking abortion and breast cancer, as we go along I hope that it will become evident why a consideration of all the data is vital in understanding the depths of depravity that the NCI panel has engaged in with their 2003 so-called “Fact Sheet” on the ABC link.
So, if folks tune out after a couple of weeks, they have seen the entire scope of the issue. If they hang in there over the next few months, they are as mad as I am (being mad is respectable among scientists, or at least being eccentric).
In the final analysis, I trust women. I trust them to do what is in the best interest of their health, and the health of their families. I trust women with the truth that sits on library shelves collecting dust for fear that it might upend Brinton’s, Palmer’s, Rosenberg’s and Bernstein’s narrow and pathetically distorted worldview. It is a worldview that sees the deaths of close to 2 BILLION babies worldwide through abortion as somehow essential to advancing women, the risk of breast cancer notwithstanding. It is a worldview that is hostile to women, their babies, their husbands, and their choices.
Finally, the principle of informed consent before a medical or surgical procedure leaves no room for discretion on the part of the clinician or the researcher. Risks MUST be divulged for the patient’s discernment. So when Dr. Bernstein famously declares:
“There are so many other messages we can give women about lifestyle modification and the impact of lifestyle and risk that I would never be a proponent of going around and telling them that having babies is the way to reduce your risk.”
{Editorial Note by GN: Bernstein says this in spite of all the data indicating that this is indeed the most significant means of reducing a woman’s risk.}
“I don’t want the issue relating to induced abortion to breast cancer risk to be part of the mix of the discussion of induced abortion, its legality, its continued availability. I think it should not be part of the argument.”
the response of a responsible and ethical scientific and medical community should have been a swift and stunning rebuke.
But as we shall continue to see, where abortion and contraception are concerned, the laws of physics, biochemistry, and pathophysiology are steadfastly ignored, subordinated to a radical agenda that is at its core anti-life, be it the life of the fetus or its mother.
Dr. Nadal,
I’m following you and will continue to do so. I have so much to learn. I’m a convert to the faith of six years, a wife and mother, and my husband and I have advanced degrees in the field of math and science. I stay home with our little God-given creations (7th due to be born in Jan) and am currently studying for a MA in Theology…so that I can better communicate about faith and science. I do realize that science is lost without faith and the perversions required to deny God’s existence in some areas of science just astound me. That’s one reason I’m really interested in this excellent discourse on the BC and abortion issue. How far some people will go to deny that children are gifts and parenthood is a miracle!
Sometimes I wonder if calling it “ABC” doesn’t automatically cause antagonistic people to shut down and not consider the points. It’s just a thought and I could be totally wrong, but I have seen many pro-choice people totally derail a conversation just because of that name. It’s possible the derailing would have happened based solely on predetermined stance anyway. Like I said, it’s just a thought based on some observations.
I spend time on Facebook discussion boards (along with AMC who introduced me to your website) and have been initiating discussions about this topic you are covering, using the data here and there to answer questions. It literally comes down to “pro-lifers are liars” and some adamant pro-choice people refuse to even address the contradictions made by scientists in their own work within the scientific community and the fact sheets issued for the general public. I guess that’s to be expected but perhaps it helps to at least plant a seed. There’s so much anger and pain associated with abortion and I’ve found that many of the women so strongly opinionated in favor of abortion “rights” are post-abortive and, sadly, many times also rape victims.
Thanks for your work on this blog and I pray your message makes it to all the right places. God guide the internet!
Blessings,
Stacy