Saturday, January 16, 2010

Abortion — What Scientists Don't Tell You

Lorne Gunter reviews the clash between science and political correctness in his National Post article:
Dr. Brinton’s admission — if you can call it that — is not exactly straightforward. She is one of the co-authors of a study of 1,600 Seattle women that seems to show a 40% greater chance of a woman developing breast cancer if she has had an abortion.

Still, even such an indirect concession by Dr. Brinton would be remarkable.

In 2003, Dr. Brinton chaired a conference on the ABC (abortion-breast cancer) link for the NCI and invited “over 100 of the world’s leading experts” to attend.

To that point, worldwide, 29 of 38 studies in the previous 40 years had shown a slightly elevated risk for breast cancer among women who had prematurely terminated a pregnancy — somewhere between 30% and 100% greater risk, right in the range of the new Seattle study. Interestingly, though, none of the authors of the raised-risk studies was invited to the NCI conference, nor were any of their findings discussed. Yet at the end of the conference, it was declared to be “well established” that “induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”

Frankly, the whole event reminded me of a United Nations conference on global warming: Invite only those scientists who agree with the preconceived conclusions of the gathering’s organizers. Ignore (or even suppress) any research that tends to disprove their theories. And in the end declare that the “science is settled” because all the world’s “experts” have said so.
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There is plenty of hypocrisy in this, too. Second-hand smoke increases non-smokers’ risk of lung cancer by less then 20%, even with prolonged, heavy exposure. That’s about half the apparent increased risk of developing breast cancer from having an abortion. Yet governments have passed all sorts of laws shielding the public from secondhand smoke at work, the arena, the mall and the stadium.

This is pure bias. Politicians and cause pleaders favour abortion and oppose smoking, so they admit risks only as it suits their agendas.
Well said! Our opponents often accuse us of violating the sacred principle of separation between church and state. Well, how about separating environmental and pro-abortion activism from science and science from politics?

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