A wake up call for abortion-breast cancer awareness

By Anna Githens

I have often wondered what it would take for proponents of legalized abortion to finally comprehend the deadly injustice they are promoting, not only in regard to the infant's life but also regarding the mother's health. I often think, what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, the wake up call that jolts America's promoters of legalized abortion into reality? I would like to believe that such a time is close at hand.

The medical community has released crucial information proving the extreme harm incurred by the expectant mother once an abortion is performed. The latest news coming out of China reveals a direct link between abortion and breast cancer, with each successive abortion that a woman undergoes increasing the risk of breast cancer. This news, compounded by years of scientific study dating back to 1957, shows that the pervasive wounds to the mother are three-fold: physical, emotional, and spiritual.

According to LifeSiteNews, researchers from the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital were "initially puzzled by their findings since Chinese women 'historically' have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the U.S." However, after the Chinese Communist Party implemented their one-child policy, the past two decades have seen an increase in the incidences of breast cancer in China at an "alarming rate." The meta-analysis studies show that after only one abortion the risk of developing breast cancer increased 44 percent, after two abortions the risk increased to 76 percent.

Is there any confusion here? Chinese women had low rates of breast cancer; once they began to have abortions they developed breast cancer at alarming rates. Any woman who violates the policy is often forced to abort, which has resulted in the deaths of 336 million babies since the 1980s, an alarming number that corresponds with the alarming increase in breast cancer.

These findings substantiate those of Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a Director at the Breast Cancer Institute, who called the finding a "real game changer" for those who deny the abortion-breast cancer link (a.k.a. ABC link). Back in 1996 Dr. Brind found a "meta-analysis that women had a 30 percent greater chance of developing breast cancer after aborting their child."

This significant evidence of late should give health industries even more impetus to promote awareness for one of the biggest causes for breast cancer: abortion. Since our progressive culture remains stubbornly averse to comprehending this discovery, and since breast cancer awareness month has proven effective, perhaps an abortion – breast cancer awareness month will help to enlighten our present culture on abortion's harmful effects, and will thus hopefully permeate the impenetrable minds of the pro-abortion community.

One does not have to be a medical expert to grasp that abortion abruptly interrupts the natural ebb and flow of life of both the mother and the developing infant. As the baby is forming so is the mother's body changing and adapting to this new life in her womb.

According to extensive research done by Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School,

"A woman gains protection from breast cancer by completing a full term pregnancy. In utero, her offspring produce hormones that mature 85 percent of the mother's breast tissue into cancer-resistant breast tissue. If the pregnancy ends through an induced abortion or a premature birth before thirty-two weeks, the mother's breasts will have only partially matured, retaining even more cancer-susceptible breast tissue than when the pregnancy began. This increased amount of immature breast tissue will leave the mother with more sites for cancer initiation, thereby increasing her risk of breast cancer."

The gradual formation of milk-producing glands and their ducts occur in tandem with the maturation of the mother's breast. When a baby is born, a mother's body is perfectly equipped to feed her child, which is only possible after a long process of development. Terminating the developing fetus in the mother's uterus abruptly interrupts her body's preparation for nourishment of her newborn baby. Evidence shows that this interruption has serious ramifications on the health of the mother, as does the use of hormonal contraceptives. Dr. Lanfranchi explains:

"There is a well-known and documented physiology supporting both induced abortion and hormonal contraceptives as risk factors for breast cancer. Yet these risks are largely unknown to women seeking family planning services. Without this knowledge, women cannot make informed choices when they are faced with the choice of an induced abortion or life for their child and the use of hormonal contraceptives. By choosing abortion, a woman increases her risk in four ways: she creates in her breasts more places for cancers to start, which is the "independent effect"; she loses the protective effect that a full-term pregnancy would have afforded her; she increases the risk of premature delivery of future pregnancies; and she lengthens her susceptibility window. Contraceptives containing estrogen-progestin drugs increase breast-cancer risks by causing breast cells to proliferate increasing the chance of mutations leading to cancer cells, and by acting as direct carcinogens."

Remarkably, the developing infant is largely responsible for protecting its mother's health. The production of two hormones, hCG and hPL, in the embryo and later the fetus and placenta, contribute to the "final maturation of its mother's breast into milk-producing breast lobules. With this maturation through a full-term pregnancy, a mother reduces her future breast-cancer risk."

Scientists recently discovered children's cells living in mothers' brains. According to Scientific America, certain fetal microchimeric cells might influence the immune system of the mother, which, during pregnancy, can recognize a fetal microchimeric cell since the fetus is half identical to the mother. "Many more microchimeric cells are found in the blood of healthy women compared to those with breast cancer, for example, suggesting that microchimeric cells can somehow prevent tumor formation," the study says.

Laminin, a major protein in a cell, "influences the genetic information inside a cell's nucleus, and is vital for the maintenance and survival of tissues." A 2011 study out of Berkeley led by two of the world's most foremost breast cancer specialists shows how laminin plays a key role in breast cancer development and the destruction of laminin can play a "detrimental role in the early stages of tumor development." Shaped like a cross, Laminin is vital in preventing cancer development.

Although a mother and baby are separate beings, it is as if they are hormonally infused during development. A beautiful dependence naturally ensues, one giving life to the other, each protecting the other. Inducing separation between the two will inevitably cause physical and emotional pain. In addition to breast cancer there are many other potential physical side effects of abortion such as permanent damage to the uterus and/or cervix, risk of bacterial infection which can cause abscess formation and peritonitis, severe hemorrhaging, organ damage due to blood loss, sterilization, and death.

This evidence makes it easy to see how terminating an infant's life in a mother's womb can cause her severe emotional suffering. In addition to physical side effects, a woman suffers emotional side effects. A natural human consequence to death is grief, thus it is unnatural and even unhealthy to not grieve the loss of life. There is a natural bond between mother and child and maternal instincts sense this bond. "Grief after induced abortion is more profound and delayed than grief after other perinatal losses," explains David Reardon from the Elliot Institute for Social Sciences Research in Springfield, Illinois. Moreover, grief that is unattended to or suppressed can cause serious emotional harm to the mother and father. He affirms that twenty-eight percent of women who had abortions later attempt suicide, and over half attempt it more than once. He recounts:

"'Lorna', a 22 year-old woman in the military was referred to me because of an eating disorder. In our first visit she told me that for the past year since her elective abortion she had wanted to die. In fact she had made a suicide attempt two days before her scheduled abortion when she felt that she could neither go through with it nor face the rest of her tour of duty in the military as a single parent. When she was unsuccessful in causing a fatal automobile accident after she had overdosed on drugs and alcohol, she had been admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit.

Her psychiatrist advised her to go through with the abortion, which had been scheduled for her the next day. Since that time her cocaine and alcohol use had escalated and her weight had continually dropped. She was haunted by a strong desire to be united with her baby, and by the urge to kill herself. In the year in which I worked intensely with her she made several suicide attempts and was re-hospitalized once. Before she moved out of the area she thanked me for having helped her, saying: 'I'm not going to kill myself now, but when I die I know that's how it will happen.' A year later it did happen."

One of the most disturbing realities to fathom is the suppression of this information by supposed women's rights advocates. Prevention through the avoidance of abortion, arguably a strong combatant to breast cancer, is a topic many women's rights groups avoid like the plague. The willful withholding of crucial information that may help to preserve and protect a woman's life is reprehensible; that women are denied those facts is criminal.

One of the largest organizations that supports breast cancer research is the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, yet it is also one of the largest donors to Planned Parenthood, an organization that through performing millions of abortions largely facilitates an unceasing endemic of breast cancer. The mission of Komen for the Cure is to "Save lives, empower people, [and] ensure quality care for all..." yet they publish information that denies the abortion link to breast cancer right on their website.

Komen is also one of the leading promoters of the pink-ribbon campaign, which the NFL actively supports. Well-meaning football players run touchdowns clad in pink believing they are promoting awareness for breast cancer when they are actually supporting the perpetuation of it. In his article Breast-Cancer Pink Tainted by Abortion Red, Ellis Washington makes the case that "70 percent of NFL players are black men, and almost 40 percent of all abortions are by black mothers killing their black babies." So when players wearing pink "foolishly think they are supporting breast cancer awareness," he says, "they are in reality funding the genocide of their own race." While the illogic and bitter irony here is mind numbing, the devastating effects on women and society as a whole are heartbreaking.

Furthermore, post abortion grief for fathers is a reality rarely acknowledged yet their pain is palpable, as conveyed here by David Reardon:

"An 18 year old gas station attendant, 'Peter,' shot himself and died three months after his father's unexpected death. Only his closest friend knew that at the time of his suicide he was despondent over his girlfriend's abortion. Their child had been conceived on the day of his father's death. In Peter's mind a mental image of the child had formed: he had told his friend that he would have a son and that he planned to name the boy after his father. The loss of that child and all that he represented to Peter was more than he could bear."

It appears that parents, especially mothers, cannot live with or without grieving the loss of their baby as the pain is too great to bear, yet the suppression of grief often morphs into other self-destructive behaviors, such as drug and alcohol abuse. It has been found that post trauma from abortion hinders one's ability to maintain close relationships due to anger, depression, PTSD, sexual dysfunction, and memory repression.

Additionally, the aftermath of abortion produces spiritual devastation. Unfortunately, when a woman feels grief from having an abortion she believes she is unworthy of God's love and sinks into despair. She thinks she has cut herself off from the One Source of unceasing love. Even more debilitating, she stops loving herself.

Despite this unbearable tragedy, there is hope. God's mercy is infinite and His love is unconditional. If God is capable of forgiving her, surely a woman can come to forgive herself after an abortion. Most importantly, God's grace is necessary for strength, for no amount of therapy can help someone entirely. Rachel's Vineyard and Silent No More are two, among many, healing ministries available to women and men that are ready and willing to provide this hope.

The bond between a mother and child is eternal and indestructible. The baby's cells are a part of her, and although no longer alive, the baby's soul lives on. Beyond all the bleakness, there is promise. A promise that mother and child will eventually reunite in heaven. God creates each and every child, for He tells us "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jer 1:5).

Perhaps an abortion-breast cancer awareness month replete with red ribbons will prove effective. While red is symbolic of the blood that is shed, it also symbolizes the life of the soul and the merciful heart of Jesus. The cross in our bodies provides testimony to this promise. Only by trusting in His unfathomable mercy may a grieving mother become whole once again.

"America you are beautiful . . . and blessed . . . The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless. If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life."

Pope John Paul II

© Anna Githens