News Items

The second featured speaker at the October, 1999 legislative briefing sponsored by the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer was attorney John Kindley. Mr. Kindley authored a widely-read article, which received attention in Congress and was published in the Wisconsin Law Review entitled, “The Fit Between the Elements for an Informed Consent Cause of Action and the Scientific Evidence Linking Induced Abortion with Increased Breast Cancer Risk.” He discussed the legal liability which physicians face when they fail to inform abortion-bound patients of the increased risk of breast cancer. He explained that the information about the increased risk of breast cancer is material to a woman’s decision whether or not to procure an abortion and that there is sufficient evidence of a connection between abortion and breast cancer to impose a legal duty upon physicians to inform their patients.

A new study done by David Reardon of the Elliott Institute and Dr. Philip Ney, a British Columbia psychiatrist, specializing in post-abortion counseling, reports that, "Women who have an abortion are five times more likely to report subsequent substance abuse compared to women who carry to term." The study, which was published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, was the latest of at least 16 studies reporting such a link. Dr. Reardon estimates that there are 150,000 to 500,000 cases of abortion-related substance abuse each year. 

Substance abuse is a leading cause of neonatal death and malformation in pregnancy. Dr. Ney says, "I have found that women with resolved grief or trauma related to a prior abortion are more likely to feel anxiety, fear,and depression during subsequent pregnancies," Ney said. "If they are unable to legally obtain mood-altering drugs with a prescription, many of these women resort to alcohol or illegal drugs as a means of suppressing unwanted feelings about their past abortions."

Illinois Senator Patrick O’Malley announced at the end of the legislative briefing sponsored by the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer in October that he intended to file a resolution with the Illinois Senate calling for hearings on the abortion-breast cancer link. His resolution (SR214) calls for an Abortion-Breast Cancer Task Force, which will consist of five members of the Senate. The resolution, which calls for public meetings to be held, is expected to be called soon in the Senate. A copy of the resolution can viewed on our web site.

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, May 30, 2001 (RFM NEWS) On Tuesday, Senate Resolution 8 failed to pass the Illinois Senate.

Introduced by gubernatorial candidate, state Senator Patrick J. O'Malley [R-18, Palos Park], the Resolution would have created a five member task force to study the possible link between abortion and breast cancer.

Resolution 8, which needed 30 yes votes for passage, fell three votes short, by a margin of 27 (y) - 20 (n) - 1(p). Three Senators who were expected to vote yes missed the roll call vote on Senate Resolution 8, leaving the initiative to face a precarious future.

"This is not a pro-life issue and this is not a pro-choice issue," said Karen Malec, coordinator of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer and herself a cancer survivor. "Resolution 8 is about informing women of the overwhelming scientific information available on the subject. Who knows how many lives the suppression of this information might cost."

A SLAP IN THE FACE FOR BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH; 12 CONGRESSMEN WANT RE-PUBLICATION OF ERRONEOUS NCI WEB PAGE DISCUSSING ABC LINK

An international women’s organization today severely criticized 12 congressmen who demanded that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson instruct the National Institutes for Health to re-post an erroneous web page on the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) website discussing the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) research.

On October 21, 2002, twelve House Democrats led by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (R-California), sent a letter of protest to Secretary Thompson accusing HHS of having allegedly allowed ideology to “subvert scientific decision making.” The Waxman group had several concerns, one of which included discussion of the ABC research appearing on a National Cancer Institute web page. They said, “Scientific information that does not serve the Administration’s ideological agenda is being removed from HHS websites.”

The 12 members of Congress offered no scientific support for their assertions by including a scientific fact sheet addressing the research. None of the members of the Waxman group is a physician.