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What You Should Know before you make a decision about abortion: The Abortion - Breast Cancer LinkThere have been over 2 dozen studies (28 out of 37 worldwide) that show a correlation between abortion and increased breast cancer risk. Especially at risk are those women who deliberately abort their first pregnancies and those who terminate multiple pregnancies. During a first pregnancy, permanent changes occur in a woman's breasts. Before she became pregnant, the gland cells in her breasts were immature and underdeveloped and she cannot produce milk. However, early in her first pregnancy rapid changes occur. Hormones flood her system, and previously dormant cells grow into a system of branching ducts and gland cells capable of producing milk. Once this initial growth, change and maturing process is complete, there will not be any other significant change for the rest of her life. Once mature, the likelihood of her breast developing cancer is much less. While still maturing however, these undifferentiated cells are less stable and have a much greater potential of developing cancer in them. If she carries her pregnancy to term, and the breast matures, this instability passes. But if her pregnancy is interrupted in its early stages, when the majority of abortions occur, the development of those breast cells is stopped, at that time they are still immature and and unstable. It appears that cancerous changes can and do happen more often among these undifferentiated breast cells in a woman who has terminated her pregnancy. Each time she aborts, the risk of cancer increases. If a woman has a full term pregnancy within 5 years after an abortion, she can help reduce her risk of breast cancer. Women who procure abortions late in their pregnancies are at high risk because of the prolonged oestrogen overexposure occurring during the first two trimesters of pregnancy and the lack of the third trimester maturing process which neutralizes the effect of oestrogen overexposure. For updated information on studies on the correlation between abortion and breast cancer, go to Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. Dr. Joel Brind is a Professor of Biology and Endrocrinology in the United States. He has researched all of the published studies worldwide and found conservatively, that there is a 30% increase in the risk associated with abortion, and has warned that the risk could actually be doubled or 100% 1. He says that his findings are consistent with what is already known about other risk factors involving oestrogen excesses. (It is interesting that Dr. Brind did not find the same association between miscarriage and breast cancer.) If you are contemplating abortion, you need to be aware of these studies and what they suggest: A study in 1981 found that aborting a first pregnancy increased the chance of developing breast cancer by factor of 2.4 times 2. Dr. H. Howe., using official New York State Health Department Records, found that aborting a first pregnancy had a 1.7 times increased risk of breast cancer under the age of 40. If she also aborted her second and/or third pregnancy, the risk increased to 4 times 3. A 1994 study found that if done before the age of eighteen, an abortion increased risk of breast cancer by 150%. If done after the age of thirty the risk was increased by a 110%. If she had a family member with breast cancer, and aborted after age 30, her risk increased by 270% 4. In Greece, an overall increased risk of 51% was reported in 1995 5. If this is your first pregnancy, can you afford to take the risk of developing breast cancer?
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