Science Undermines Abortion Activists

[PLAL]

To read the article

“Science Undermines Abortion Activists” go to …

catholicleague.org/

Double click on “Catalyst Online”, then “2008”, then “January-Febuary” and then the article.

 

[SoCalRC]

It is probably worth noting that:

1. The article did receive quite a bit of press (you can find lots of them by searching the web)
2. The National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and a large number of cancer researchers all reject the findings as incompatible with available data:

cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/abortion-miscarriage

cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_Can_Having_an_Abortion_Cause_or_Contribute_to_Breast_Cancer.asp

1. This isn’t the first time said Journal has published articles which were outside the scientific mainstream. For example, the Journal has published an article asserting that HIV does not cause AIDS, something that the vast majority of medical researchers contest. Also, there was an article arguing the dangers of thimersol in vaccines which has drawn a great deal of criticism from even other researchers interested in the hypothesis.
2. Quackwatch has identified the Journal as an untrustworthy source of medical information.

 

[Dale_M]

catalyst article:

So why is it that pro-life people like yourself are learning about this for the first time by reading this article?

Probably because they don’t pay attention to pro-life websites.

That article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons was trumpeted up and down the web last autumn as being some kind of blockbuster study. The findings were often exaggerated and presented as being conclusive evidence of a breast cancer - abortion rate.

Actually, the author of the JAPS article presented very modest findings. He did so because it was a population level, retrospective study. All it said is that countries with high abortion rates also have high breast cancer rates. It could not explain why this would be, nor could it not rule out alternative causes. Moreover, it could not predict that an individual woman who had an abortion would therefore face an increased risk of breast cancer - the study just wasn’t set up to look at that.

Okay, back to the Catalyst article.

An evangelical organization, Heidi Group, estimates that 90 percent of women considering an abortion decide against doing so once they are introduced to ultrasound technology.

This makes perfect sense. The more a fetus resembles a full-term baby, the more likely people are willing to extend personhood to the fetus, and with personhood… full human rights.