Breast Cancer, Artificial Birth Control, and Procured Abortion

Breast Cancer - Artificial Contraception Links


A Case-Control Study of Oral Contraceptive Use and Incident Breast Cancer (2008)
"These results suggest that [oral contraceptive] use is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer diagnosed in recent years."

"After control for breast cancer risk factors, the multivariable odds ratio for 1 year or more of OC use, relative to less than 1 year of use, was 1.5[-fold]"


Risk Factors for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Women Under the Age of 45 Years (2009)

Study found that of a pool of women afflicted with breast cancer, artificial birth control use appears to be linked to a much greater incidence of a deadlier form of the cancer:
"Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer...Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater for triple-negative breast cancer than non-triple-negative breast"

Effect of [injected] depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate on breast cancer risk among women 20-44 years of age"We found that recent DMPA use for 12 months or longer was associated with a 2.2-fold (95% CI: 1.2-4.2) increased risk of invasive breast cancer."

Breast Cancer - Procured Abortion Links

Women With a Previous Induced Abortion Had a Significant Increased Risk of Breast Cancer
Researchers led by Ai-Ren Jiang reported a statistically significant 1.52-fold elevation in risk for women with IAs [induced abortion] and a “significant dose-response relationship between (the risk) for breast cancer and number of (IAs),” meaning that risk climbed with number of IAs.

Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis.

"The results support the inclusion of induced abortion among significant independent risk factors for breast cancer, regardless of parity or timing of abortion relative to the first term pregnancy. Although the increase in risk was relatively low, the high incidence of both breast cancer and induced abortion suggest a substantial impact of thousands of excess cases per year currently, and a potentially much greater impact in the next century, as the first cohort of women exposed to legal induced abortion continues to age."

Headline: More flies caught with honey than vinegar

Today I read Dawn Eden's post about a young pro-choice student (link STILL broken as of 11/6/08) who had blogged on her first experiences shadowing an abortionist as he carried out his deeds. The blog has since been taken down entirely, but the relevant post is reproduced on Dawn's blog ->here. Unfortunately, the author claims that she was beset by pro-lifer hate-mail and was forced to take down her blog.

Pro-lifer hate-mail? Shouldn't we pro-life proponents ALL be able to easily agree that the latter (hate-mail) should never come from the former (pro-lifers)? If we're truly echoing Christ in our defense of unborn life, we should be receiving hate-mail, never writing it.

In the pro-life movement so much harm is done by Pharisees: those who profess right belief but do not evidence the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their words and lives. All the real good is done be the servants, the sidewalk counselor, the crisis pregnancy centers. As my newsflash says: more flies caught with honey than vinegar. Rational people will choose to side with the more compassionate, less bitter movement.

I live in an area with a very strong Pro-life movement. While I've never fully involved myself, I support them, and I've never had cause to regret it because they're awesome. They protest abortion out of LOVE and they protest WITH love. Every experience I've had in front of a Planned Parenthood has been prayerful and peaceful, and a few have even been inspiring.

I do understand that not all pro-life efforts are motivated by love and that's really a shame. It's unfortunate that they get so much press. They're the exception, not the rule! I think that as the culture war seethes, we have to point to unfair coverage of pro-life efforts as one of the accelerants of that fire. It's hard to convince people of our loving intent when we get conflated with arsonists and bombers.

edited 11/6/08

Preferential Voting Could Save Pro-Life Voters in the Next Election

I want to make a suggestion for a project for voting Catholics to work on for the next four years:

Preferential (aka Ranked) Voting

It's called "Ranked Voting" or "Preferential Voting". According to Mark Monmonier's Bushmanders and Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections this practice is used in other parts of the world that don't suffer through a strict two-party system. Some of us who consider ourselves conservative pro-life Catholics and Christians of other stripes find ourselves grumbling about the current state of things, especially after this most recent electoral disappointment where we await the most liberal and pro-abortion President in American History.

Some of us wonder if a third party could serve us better. I think it's premature for conservative Christians to push for the creation of a strong third party right now. A third party would be in big trouble in a hurry if it somehow materialized tomorrow.

Ranked or Preferential Voting would ensure that in the future there WILL be room for more parties. Basically, it ENSURES that you never "throw your vote away", as some people claim third party voting does to one's vote. It does this by giving the voter that a single transferable vote that transfers to second and third choices as the voter's choices are knocked out, allowing us to vote for big party candidates as a contingency, but to show our support for a hypothetical third party of our choice first. And hopefully, we'd one day see a third party of more authentically pro-life representatives and senators in our States and in Washington D.C. I strongly believe that this won't come until preferential voting, or some other way of voting, comes first.

Let's take an example that doesn't involve me suggesting the Constitution Party. Say you take a guy who, for God knows what reason, is voting in a Presidential election and he leans toward the Green Party, likes the Libertarian party a little less, but always ends up voting Democratic. In this previous election, his vote would be applied to Obama because in the first two rounds of processing, the Green and Libertarian candidates would be knocked out. Read the article cited for a better explanation. Again, I maintain that this would allow us to put a future, admittedly pie-in-the-sky-idealistic, third party candidate on the ballot. I just want to see that option!

Many Pro-life Catholics tend to vote Republican either enthusiastically or with a grain of salt, and the GOP's policies could definitely be improved upon for our purposes. Even conservative pro-lifers working against abortion should also be working against the death penalty and unethical torture practices, and believers of Catholic just war doctrine have problems with pre-emptive war, all of which are baggage that the Republican party carries.

According to one Steve Skojek (quoted here),

"We've heard a lot of talk this election cycle (and the one before it . . . and the one before that . . .) about stopping a great evil by voting for a lesser one. And yet, the only certain outcome of constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is the perpetuation of evil."

I agree, although I'm hesitant to call either party evil in and of itself. My own family fights over this: we're all pro-life and we hate having to choose parties right now; we're a house divided in this way.

I would love to hear what people think about Preferential voting. I think it could lead to a lot of good and is the one thing that could finally shake the complacent bipartisan system and force the Republican party to compete for Pro-life votes by producing more results! Even better it could inaugurate another party, espousing better Catholic ideals that even Evangelicals and other people of faith could get behind. We need to use our current frustration and unleash it on some new goal to fix our country before it goes through a "parting of the ways", as Father Benedict Groeschel has speculated.

Image Credit:

* Sample ballot image created in MSPaint by Tom Ruen (For public domain)

edits: bear with me, I'm improving my writing little by little