LifeCare Center For Women - Abortion and Breast Cancer

LifeCare Center for Women

LifeNotes

Abortion/Breast Cancer Link

The ABC (Abortion-Breast Cancer) link has to do with the growth of cells (or proliferation) which is caused by estrogen during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. In the last trimester, the cells stop multiplying and assume their final function in the breast (differentiation).

Dr. Joel Brind, a researcher who has studied this issue, stats, "How estradiol, or estrogens in general, relate to breast cancer risk, has to do with their role in the grown of breast tissue. It is estradiol which makes the breast grow to mature size at puberty, and which makes them grow again during pregnancy (at least during the first two trimesters.) The cells in the breast which are responsive to estradiol are those which are primitive or undifferentiated. Once terminally differentiated into milk producing cells, something which happens under the influence of the other (still largely unknown) factors, breast cells can no longer be stimulated to reproduce.

It is the undifferentiated cells, which are also vulnerable to the effects of carcinogens, which can rise to cancerous tumors later in life. If a woman therefore, has gone through some weeks of a normal pregnancy, and then aborts that pregnancy, she is left with more of these cancer vulnerable cells that she had in her breasts before she was pregnant. In addition, any abnormal, potentially cancer-forming cells already in her breasts . . . have also been stimulated to multiply. All this translates into a statistically greater probability that a cancerous tumor may eventually arise."

House Bill 2517 is currently trying to change the language in the Women's Right to Know Act to include the increased risk of breast cancer associated with abortion. Please let your representative know you are supportive of this change in language.

For more information on the relationship between abortion and breast cancer, click here.

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