Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer Challenges Danish Researchers to Study the Whole Group, Use Record-Linkage Database

Contact: Karen Malec, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, 847-421-4000

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., April 24, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer commented on a Danish study led by Christina  Braüner entitled, "Induced abortion and breast cancer among parous women: A Danish cohort study."  [1]

Braüner's team studied a very limited segment of the population and misrepresented their findings. They stated they "did not find evidence of an adverse effect of induced abortion on breast cancer risk in parous (childbearing) older women overall...." But they didn't look at parous women overall. They underestimated the risk of abortion by recruiting only women ages 50-65 and excluding all women already diagnosed with cancer. Pre-menopausal women were excluded, as were childless women, although there was no legitimate justification for it.

Women susceptible to breast cancer because of earlier abortions were either already dead or excluded from participation in the study because they already had cancer. The abortion-breast cancer link has been established in many studies with study subjects age 45 or younger. [2,3,4,5,6] Braüner's group did not refute them.

Importantly, their abstract reported they had conducted "a follow-up of approximately 12 years" after entry into the study. The average age at abortion in Denmark is 27. [7] Median age at recruitment in the study was age 57. That's a 30 year difference. The follow-up period actually included a range of between 1 and 50 years following abortion with an average of 30 years. The oldest women who had abortions were 49, but the youngest women were 15. [7] 

Professor Joel Brind (Baruch College, City University of New York) said, "The important point is that all the women in the study who had had an abortion were the ones who did not get cancer for an average of about 30 years after the abortion. By that time, the study showed that these survivors had no greater risk of breast cancer much later in life than those who did not have any abortions, if the data set is valid, that is. Concluding from this that there is no evidence of an ABC link is a gross exaggeration and irresponsible. More...