Physician changes mind on ABC link

British Physician, Thomas Stuttaford, Does About-Face on Abortion-Breast Cancer Link

June 19, 2001

It was only last year in an August 14, 2000 issue of The Times that Thomas Stuttaford, M.D. authored an article entitled, “Can Abortions Be Linked to Breast Cancer?” In this article, Dr. Stuttaford reassured British women that abortion is a safe procedure. He declared that, “As yet there is no evidence of a causative link between abortion and breast cancer,” and he incorrectly added that “none has been claimed by Professor (Joel) Brind.”

Less than a year later, on May 17, 2001 Stuttaford authored another article for The Times in which he revealed that he had reversed his position on the abortion-breast cancer research. In an article entitled “Fresh Line of Attack,” he wrote that:

“Breast cancer is diagnosed in 33,000 women in the U.K. each year; of these, an unusually high proportion had an abortion before eventually starting a family. Such women are up to four times more likely to develop breast cancer.

“A report by the Royal Statistical Society shows that a termination of pregnancy interrupts the cellular changes that occur in the breast during pregnancy. Once the woman has had children, the effect is less because the cellular changes have been completed....”

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, an international women’s organization, offered her comments on this turn of events by saying that “The British scientific community has consistently demonstrated far less bias against the abortion-breast cancer research than has the American scientific community. The British have been far more willing to publish solid research showing a positive association between abortion and breast cancer. We invite the American scientific community to set aside its political ideology in favor of women’s health by objectively evaluating and publishing the scientific research.”

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women’s organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.