One persistent scare-tactic of the anti-abortion crowd for years now has been touting the supposed “link” between abortion and breast cancer. (The idea is that breast cancer is hormonally triggered, and is made more likely by hormones present at the beginning of pregnancy, and less likely by hormones triggered by childbirth. Thus, women who carry a birth to term get a wash - no net effect on their likelihood of breast cancer, while women who terminate a pregnancy get all the bad effect and none of the good.)

This is a vaguely plausible theory that suffers from a complete lack of evidentiary backing - they just made it up. However, the “Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer” has done a good enough job publicizing their delusion that they have made “ABC” a a linchpin of anti-choice strategies that pretend to be rooted in concern for women’s best interests. (They have also launched a movement, backed by right-wing legal foundations, to bankroll malpractice lawsuits against abortion providers on grounds that the failure to tell patients they were at risk of breast cancer if they had an abortion was a failure of informed consent. This is an attempt to intimidate providers and scare patients away from exercising their abortion rights on the basis of unfounded claims. The right-wing lawyers have essentially unlimited funds, while the doctors already face heavy malpractice premiums, so it does not matter if the lawsuits have a chance of succeeding - they accomplish their purpose just by harrassing providers.) They have garnered enough attention that they convinced over two dozen right-wing members of Congress to sign a letter demanding that the NIH investigate the so-called “ABC” effect. Which it did.

Repeated meta-studies have shown the same result: though individual studies occasionally show a positive link between abortion and breast cancer - taken as “proof” by anti-abortion activists - many more do not, and cross-study summaries show no link. The National Cancer Institute of the NIH reported that, although full-term pregnancy, especially when young, does reduce the lifetime risk of cancer, “Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk”, nor are miscarriages. And just last year, an immense, 16-country meta-analytical data review in The Lancet revealed that, among women followed prospectively (from before they had had either an abortion or breast cancer), those who went on to have abortions actually had a slightly lower risk of breast cancer than the others. (This study also found that, among women with who were asked later in life whether they had previously had an abortion, there was a slightly higher risk of breast cancer among those who reported they had - but, as the researchers pointed out, this was likely due to the distorting effect of the “retrospective” study: women who had had serious health problems were likely to give a fuller health history than others, while those who had no reason to be completely frank with their doctors may have concealed prior abortions. This is the reason for prospective studies, and the likely reason for the distinct difference in results between the prospective and retrospective arms of this meta-study.) Famed breast cancer researcher Susan Love says, about the latter study in particular:

The findings from this large international study are important for two reasons. One, they should reassure women that having an abortion does not increase their breast cancer risk. Two, they loudly dispute the lobbying and public relations efforts of groups like the Coalition for Abortion/Breast Cancer Risk, who have been using the results of poorly designed retrospective studies to increase fears about abortion and breast cancer. . . .

It should now be clear that abortion does not increase breast cancer risk. The issues about abortion are serious and controversial but they are not helped by distorting science. Anyone who continues to make that claim is dangerous, irresponsible, and ignoring the evidence.

That hasn’t stopped the propagandists, however.

Now that the NIH and other respected scientific bodies have thoroughly repudiated their claims, they have not changed their minds, as reputable scientists would do. Instead, they have turned to other “experts” to bolster claims they continue to make on the basis of evidence that has been repeatedly discredited. But where do they get such experts, when the leading figures in the field have produced verifiable evidence that the “ABC” claim is a canard? The same place they got their data originally: they just make them up.

When the “Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer” was slapped down by the NIH and the Lancet study, they responded with a hard-hitting editorial by Angela LaFranchi, M.D., in “the bioethics journal Ethics and Medics“, and another editorial on the same subject by Edward Furton, Ph.D., in the same “journal”. It turns out, however, that Ethics and Medics is actually a newsletter of the “National Catholic Bioethics Center” with an editorial policy of printing only material that supports Catholic teachings. And as for content, LaFranchi’s editorial merely offers the sour-grapes claim that the Lancet study was biased; Furton’s cites only LaFranchi for all but one of his footnotes.

But is this all? By no means. The Coalition has allies! Right-wingers are now citing claims by the “Breast Cancer Prevention Institute” of the controversial “link”. And who is the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute? They claim to have conducted original research on “ABC” which somehow doesn’t get published. They also provide helpful booklets on how to avoid breast cancer. (Eat vegetables, get Omega-3 fatty acids, and don’t use hormonal birth control or have abortions. If you have had an abortion, having a full-term pregnancy and breastfeeding [i.e., raising the child thereafter] will help somewhat. As for birth control, since horomones are out, you can try “natural family planning”. Somehow, condoms, the IUD, the diaphragm, the sponge, the cervical cap, spermicidal jellies, and sterilization didn’t get mentioned, although they are all non-hormonal birth control methods vastly easier and more reliable than the rhythm method). By some strange coincidence, all their advice just happens to be exactly what the Catholic church teaches about sex, though they don’t mention this, and though they justify it with pseudo-medical advice that just happens to leave out what the Catholic church doesn’t teach. But that’s not all! They, too, have published hard-hitting editorials, including one by their President, Joel Brind, M.D., which claims that the NIH study was flawed by bias. Dr. Angela LaFranchi - whose “editorial” was touted so highly by the Coaltion - is a founding member of the BCPI, and also the author of the suspicious “eat your vegetables and don’t use birth control” anti-cancer pamphlet, which happens to include Brind among its cited sources. But wait! - the Coalition also links to the letter by Dr. Brind! And Brind’s name will be familiar to fans of the Coalition, because the President of the BCPI just happens to also be a member of the Board of Directors of the CABC! And the various members of both groups just happen to enjoy publishing “medical editorials” and pamphlets that reproduce hard-line Catholic anti-sex teachings in the guise of medical information.

In other words, it’s a shuck. Both the CABC and the BCPI are composed of closely overlapping groups of the same Catholic fanatics who cite each other as proof of their shared delusions about abortion. By shuffling the players and renaming themselves, they create a “network” of interchangeable groups who can cite the same claims under different names to create the appearance of a professional consensus. By repeating the same claims in different permutations (Brind claims the NIH was biased, LaFranchi claims the Lancet study was biased, Brind cites LaFranchi, the Coalition cites LaFranchi and the BCPI which includes LaFranchi and Brind . . .), publishing non-reviewed “data” in dubious venues, and constantly digging one poorly-conducted retrospective study after another out of the woodwork when every well-done study shows the same results over and over, they create a sound and fury intended to simulate scientific debate and thereby insist that this “ongoing controversy” be made known to the public (Intelligent Design, anyone?). But their “experts” are merely themselves and their friends, hiding behind different names and Web sites, and all the more pathetic as they launder their devalued currency back and forth between themselves, hoping that if they fool themselves the will by definition have fooled someone else as well.