"A DOCTOR who faces disciplinary action for posting online do-it-yourself abortion instructions has failed to put forth moral and social arguments to support why she did so, a tribunal has found.
The Medical Board of Australia is pursuing professional misconduct action against Brisbane doctor Adrienne Freeman after she posted advice online explaining how women could have abortions without medical supervision." Read more here.
Media Release from the Reverend Fred Nile MLC, released Tuesday, 22nd September 2010.
The Rev Hon Fred Nile MLC, Leader of the Christian Democratic Party, has raised concern that new scientific research linking abortion and breast cancer is being ignored in Australia for ideological reasons.
"Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer that Australian women suffer, with approximately 14,000 new diagnoses every year. It is a horrific condition that can rob women of their sense of femininity, dignity and ultimately life", said Rev Fred Nile.
"Whilst I applaud the hard work invested by researchers, community groups like the McGrath Foundation and collaborative efforts like pink ribbon day, prevention is always better than cure. So I find it tragic that some in our community are choosing to ignore preventative measures that could directly affect the health and well being of tens of thousands of women. Due to political ideologies, some are still ignoring the growing body of scientific evidence that abortion significantly increases a woman's chances of developing breast cancer.
Because of his concern, Rev Fred Nile raised this issue in the NSW Parliament on Tuesday 21st September 2010, quoting from an affidavit of leading breast cancer surgeon, Angela Lanfranchi:
"I am a breast cancer surgeon practising in New Jersey, since 1984. I hold the position of Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. I am also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and am certified by the American Board of Surgery.
She goes on to say:
As a breast cancer surgeon over the last 25 years, I have cared for ever-younger women with breast cancer; my youngest was 25 years old. There has been a 40% increase in incidence in invasive breast cancer over my career. I have researched the causes of these alarming increases over the past fifteen years and have become knowledgeable about the reasons for these trends, one of which is induced abortion ...
Just last year alone, three studies from the United States, China and Turkey, confirmed that abortion is associated with increased risk of breast cancer ...
Epidemiological studies have long confirmed that abortion is associated with increased risk of breast cancer, satisfying the Hill criteria for causation. These studies will necessarily continue to be produced because scientists know that in order to conduct valid studies concerning any risk factor all known variables must be controlled for, and induced abortion is one of them.
The physiology of why abortion increases the risk of breast cancer is well-understood, as explained below.
A lobule is a unit of breast tissue consisting of milk glands and ducts which carry the milk towards the nipple. Before the first full-term pregnancy, a women's breast is about 75% Type 1 and 25% Type 2 lobules where ductal and lobular breast cancers form respectively. By the end of the pregnancy, the breast is about 85% fully matured to cancer-resistant Type 4 lobules and only about 15% immature, cancer-vulnerable lobules remain, thereby reducing the mother's future risk of breast cancer. After weaning, Type 4 lobules become Type 3 lobules. There are permanent changes in the up and down regulation of genes in these Type 3 lobules conferring life-long reduction in breast cancer risk.
During a pregnancy the absolute number of these lobules also increase as the breast doubles in volume with an increase in the number of lobules and a decrease in stroma (the surrounding connective tissue) ...
Only after 32 weeks' gestation does the fetal-placental hormone human placental lactogen ... in concert with other hormones, fully mature the breast lobules into Type 4, making them cancer-resistant. An abortion before 32 weeks prevents this from occurring. The same physiology accounts for an approximate doubling in breast cancer risk due to premature birth before 32 weeks, as shown by several studies. In addition, it has been well-established by at least 2 meta-analyses that abortion increases the risk of future premature births. A combination of these two effects results in a further increase in breast cancer risk from abortion ...
In light of the clear physiology linking abortion to breast cancer, and the numerous studies documenting the increased risk, physicians have a professional duty to disclose that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer.
Greater honesty is needed to prevent negative psychological impacts of abortion.
"Women are hard-wired for relationships—and a woman’s relationship to her baby is one of the most powerful of all, whether she realizes it or not. The hard-wiring of the brain may explain many women’s disturbing post-abortion feelings," write Professors Evelyn Birge Vitz and Paul C. Vitz in an article published in the September 20 issue of Public Discourse.
In the article the authors relate spending a semester with students studying the stories of women who shared their experiences after an abortion.
The authors found that "many of these women are in acute pain; some are almost totally incapacitated" by their post-abortion feelings.
"What is particularly striking is that most of the women who have these powerful emotional reactions to their abortion are stunned by them. They were not opposed to abortion; many were actively pro-choice. They were blind-sided by their own reaction. One woman lamented—and thousands of others echo her mystified anguish—‘If this was the right decision, why do I feel so terrible?’”
"When responding to the stress of the abortion, she may well be drawn to nurturing, to ‘tending and befriending’ behavior: this is, we saw, characteristic of women. But one of the key persons she might have tended and befriended—her unborn child—she has just terminated. She therefore has no ready outlet to cope with this significant stress."
"Add to this already toxic mix the very power of the memories involved in most unwanted pregnancies and abortion experiences," the authors write, "such as the nausea or other physical symptoms, often exacerbated by hormonal instability and mood swings; the anxiety over the unwanted pregnancy; the drama of the pregnancy test; often, the difficulty of making the decision, then the waiting before the abortion can take place; perhaps protesters in front of the clinic; the abortion clinic waiting room, crowded perhaps with other emotional women and men; the abortion itself—the doctors and nurses, the stirrups, the vacuum or other machinery—then the recovery room; the pain and bleeding afterward.
"All these dramatic experiences are likely to provide her with indelible memories. A woman may return to them and relive them over and over."
The authors conclude that "though a woman can decide rationally to have an abortion ... a terrible and shocking reaction sets in after their abortion. Often what lasts is not the relief or the power of the logical arguments: these may prove very short-lived. It is, rather, the failed, betrayed relationship between the woman and her fetus—now, in her mind, her dead baby—that has staying power."
The authors call for a greater honesty from the medical profession toward women contemplating abortion "to prevent at least some women from having to experience this painful surprise."
"Women need to be told the truth. They need to be prepared for what may be the consequences of this major life decision. This is what informed choice means."
Source: LifeSiteNews.
Full article.
From LifeSiteNews
Men and women who felt they had inadequate counseling before an abortion, as well as those who disagreed with their partners about the decision to abort, were more likely to experience personal and interpersonal problems following the procedure, according to a new paper* published in the medical journal Traumatology.
Researchers Catherine T. Coyle, Priscilla K. Coleman, and Vincent M. Rue - all experts in the after-effects of abortion - collected data via online surveys from 374 women who had a prior abortion and 198 men whose partners had experienced elective abortion.
The results found that women who expressed dissatisfaction with their pre-abortion counseling tended to have relationship problems, such as obsessive intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal - and also tended to describe the full diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Men with the same pre-abortion experience reported similar interpersonal trauma.
When the individuals reported that their partner disagreed with the decision to abort, women were more likely to report PTSD and intrusion tendencies, while in men such disagreement was linked with PTSD, intrusion, hyperarousal, and other relationship problems.
The researchers pointed out that few studies have examined men's psychological responses to elective abortion, although the procedure has been commonly linked to subsequent feelings of anger, anxiety, guilt, grief, and powerlessness in men.
"Although men are involved with conception and abortion, they are not routinely offered abortion counseling," they write. "Despite the call for greater inclusion of and attention to males in abortion clinics, little has changed. Most men who accompany women for abortion do not receive counseling and are left alone to wait."
* Catherine T. Coyle, Priscilla K. Coleman, and Vincent M. Rue Traumatology first published on November 16, 2009.
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