Republicans claim that Abortion causes Breast Cancer

[vulcanman]

Watched it last night on TV and its already on youtube ... thoughts ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC6pz_G7rgE

Feel free to repost this thread with your own original commentary in the OP on the matter.

-Schadenfroh (AT Mod)

 

[CycloWizard]

No comments of your own or even a cursory review of the literature to see if the claim has merit? Surely you're not just dismissing claims which would necessarily be factual in nature simply because they conflict with your opinion, right? I'm sure all of the liberals will be in here to call you a troll momentarily. Until then...
Study 1

By contrast, multiparity, family history of breast cancer and induced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer.

Study 2

Among parous women, a history of induced abortion was associated with a 90% increased risk for breast cancer (adjusted RR = 1.9; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.1-3.2). Among nulliparous women, no association between induced abortion and breast cancer was found. Neither among parous women nor among nulliparous women was a history of spontaneous abortion related to the risk for breast cancer.

Seems like they might be on to something. But that's only if you trust peer-reviewed medical literature from the top cancer journals.

 

[zsdersw]

Surely you're not just dismissing claims which would necessarily be factual in nature simply because they conflict with your opinion, right?

No more than you're believing in these claims simply because they align with your opinion.

 

[boomerang]

Maddow has been caught in so many flagrant lies of late that how anyone could even begin to take her seriously is beyond me.

She's a woman with an agenda and she'll do whatever it takes in attempts to further it.

 

[IBMer]

Maddow has been caught in so many flagrant lies of late that how anyone could even begin to take her seriously is beyond me.

She's a woman with an agenda and she'll do whatever it takes in attempts to further it.

Proof of this claim?

 

[Vette73]

No comments of your own or even a cursory review of the literature to see if the claim has merit? Surely you're not just dismissing claims which would necessarily be factual in nature simply because they conflict with your opinion, right? I'm sure all of the liberals will be in here to call you a troll momentarily. Until then...
Study 1

Study 2

Seems like they might be on to something. But that's only if you trust peer-reviewed medical literature from the top cancer journals.

 

[CycloWizard]

No more than you're believing in these claims simply because they align with your opinion.

LOL. Really? I thought I just posted quotes from two review articles which agree with the claim. Maybe we're in the bizzaro world where my opinion should be based on opinions rather than facts? I believe these claims because science and math tell me that they are correct. You, on the other hand, dismiss facts out of hand because they disagree with your opinion - that's messed up. The beauty of it all is that facts are facts whether or not you agree with them.

 

[ichy]

Not having children increases a woman's risk for breast cancer. The risks are the same whether she miscarried, had an abortion or never got preggers in the first place.

 

[CycloWizard]

Ah, so you don't understand the difference between correlation and causation. Lucky for us, the authors of the studies I linked above do, which is how they demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship.

 

[CycloWizard]

Not having children increases a woman's risk for breast cancer. The risks are the same whether she miscarried, had an abortion or never got preggers in the first place.

That might be true. But apparently it's not.

Among parous women, a history of induced abortion was associated with a 90% increased risk for breast cancer (adjusted RR = 1.9; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.1-3.2). Among nulliparous women, no association between induced abortion and breast cancer was found. Neither among parous women nor among nulliparous women was a history of spontaneous abortion related to the risk for breast cancer.

 

[zsdersw]

LOL. Really? I thought I just posted quotes from two review articles which agree with the claim. Maybe we're in the bizzaro world where my opinion should be based on opinions rather than facts? I believe these claims because science and math tell me that they are correct.

It's too convenient that your opinion aligns with the articles presented in this thread. Otherwise, how do you feel about abortion?

You, on the other hand, dismiss facts out of hand because they disagree with your opinion - that's messed up. The beauty of it all is that facts are facts whether or not you agree with them.

I've dismissed nothing.

 

[boomerang]

Proof of this claim?

Here, let me Google that for you.

 

[CycloWizard]

It's too convenient that your opinion aligns with the articles presented in this thread. Otherwise, how do you feel about abortion?



I've dismissed nothing.

It's too convenient that my views align with scientific fact? Yes, that's awfully convenient for me, isn't it? Idiot. Fine, here are some more articles, also chosen in order of appearance from a pubmed search for "induced abortion" breast cancer. I've skipped non-peer reviewed findings and abstracts which don't mention one way or the other in the abstract.
Study 3

This article examines the abortion breast cancer link in some historical scientific detail, offering a perspective on an issue that is at the center of a long-running public policy debate that plays out in legislatures, courtrooms, and newspaper editorials, as well as in scientific and medical journals. Even as politically correct studies have been promulgated to neutralize the data proving the abortion breast cancer link, even stronger data have emerged in recent years that firmly link abortion to premature births in subsequent pregnancies, which in turn raise the risk of breast cancer in mothers and cerebral palsy in prematurely born children.

Study 4

Breast cancer risk was found to be increased in women with age (> or = 50) [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.42-3.18], induced abortion (95% CI 1.13-1.53), age at first birth (> or = 35) (95% CI 1.62-5.77), body mass index (BMI > or = 25) (95% CI 1.27-1.68), and a positive family history (95% CI 1.11-1.92). However, decreased breast cancer risk was associated with the duration of education (> or = 13 years) (95% CI 0.62-0.81), presence of spontaneous abortion (95% CI 0.60-0.85), smoking (95% CI 0.61-0.85), breast feeding (95% CI 0.11-0.27), nulliparity (95% CI 0.92-0.98), hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (95% CI 0.26-0.47), and oral contraceptive use (95% CI 0.50-0.69). On multivariable logistic regression analysis, age (> or = 50) years (OR 2.61, 95% CI 2.20-3.11), induced abortion (OR 1.66, 95% CI 1.38-1.99), and oral contraceptive use (OR 0.60, 95% CI 0.48-0.74) were found to be associated with breast cancer risk as statistically significant independent factors.

Study 5

Informed patient consent for medical treatment is required by both law and medical ethics. Yet, both federal agencies and academicians are participating in the suppression of information about the heightened risk of breast cancer posed by oral contraceptives and induced abortion. There is historical precedent in the long-delayed acknowledgement of the smoking/lung cancer link. By law, a patient has the right to be fully informed of the nature of her medical condition and any proposed course of therapy. It is assumed that a patient will be given the complete and true scientific basis of her diagnosis and treatment, to ensure that her well-being and her autonomy in decision-making are protected. Informed consent is the process by which a patient can participate in choices about medical treatment. It originates from the legal and ethical right of the patient to direct what is done to her body, and from the ethical duty of the physician to involve the patient in her medical care. Our federal government has become a barrier to informed consent concerning oral contraceptive drugs and induced abortion.

Study 6 - finally one that was unable to find a correlation (thought its methodology has already been challenged in a letter in the same journal)

Using Cox multivariable regression, we found no statistically significant association between any measure of incomplete pregnancy and breast cancer risk among nulliparous or parous women.

 

[Vette73]

Ah, so you don't understand the difference between correlation and causation. Lucky for us, the authors of the studies I linked above do, which is how they demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship.

Only Fail is you. Your link...

"The association between induced abortion and breast cancer was stronger in the southeastern regions of the country, where there is a predominantly Roman Catholic population, suggesting reporting bias. Support for reporting bias as an explanation for regional differences was also found in data supplied by study participants and their physicians on the use of oral contraception. The authors conclude that reporting bias is a real problem in case-control studies of induced abortion and breast cancer risk if study findings are based solely upon information from study subjects."

Even they admit there is flaws in their study. Also their study did not look into any other differances between the women.


of course you are the type of idiot that thinks this is true as well...

 

[Carmen813]

These signs are misleading at best and they are popping up all over Syracuse.

The studies you linked do not make a compelling argument. Neither was conducted in the U.S., so it's difficult to generalize those results to our population. Second, one of them is over 10 years old, meaning it is now considered out of date and irrelevant. Third, providing abstracts means we can't actually critique their methodology and learn how the study was conducted in a real way. Many studies have found that there is no link at all. Four, the "causes" of most cancers are unknown, so all of these studies are corelational. Anyone claiming that an "abortion" causes breast cancer is full of shit. No research worth their salt ever makes that type of causative claim, it is always tentative. Fifth, as far as I can tell they rely on self-report. I can speak from experience and say that people who have cancer will look for a reason they developed it. That doesn't mean that reason is the cause, and they are likely to latch on to some "major" event.

On a related note, as a cancer survivor I find it despicable that cancer is being used to play this type of political game. This is nothing more than an attempt to play on societal fears about cancer to influence women considering getting an abortion. Put another way, this is discrimination in the form of ableism. It causes harm to those who have experienced cancer by furthering misinformation about the illness.

This is the problem when politics and science get mixed up.

 

[CycloWizard]

Only Fail is you. Your link...

"The association between induced abortion and breast cancer was stronger in the southeastern regions of the country, where there is a predominantly Roman Catholic population, suggesting reporting bias. Support for reporting bias as an explanation for regional differences was also found in data supplied by study participants and their physicians on the use of oral contraception. The authors conclude that reporting bias is a real problem in case-control studies of induced abortion and breast cancer risk if study findings are based solely upon information from study subjects."

Even they admit there is flaws in their study. Also their study did not look into any other differances between the women.

of course you are the type of idiot that thinks this is true as well...

They actually determined how such biases arise due to regional variations in religious populations and accounted for that in the study:

PURPOSE: Our goal was threefold: 1) to evaluate the relationship between a history of induced or spontaneous abortion and the risk for breast cancer in a Dutch population-based, case-control study; 2) to examine reporting bias by comparing risks between two geographic areas (i.e., western regions and southeastern regions in The Netherlands that differ in prevalence of and attitudes toward induced abortion); and 3) to compare reporting bias in data on induced abortion with reporting bias in data on oral contraceptive use.

The bit you cited is their critique of previous studies which did not arrive at the same conclusion. You would know that if you weren't an illiterate knuckle dragger or knew anything about science, statistical analysis, or regression. I'm teaching a course on it in the spring - let me know if you're interested.

 

[zsdersw]

It's too convenient that my views align with scientific fact? Yes, that's awfully convenient for me, isn't it?

Yes it is. How are we to know that your opinion is rooted in scientific evidence? Would your opinion change if the evidence was contrary?

 

[CycloWizard]

These signs are misleading at best and they are popping up all over Syracuse.

The studies you linked do not make a compelling argument. Neither was conducted in the U.S., so it's difficult to generalize those results to our population. Second, one of them is over 10 years old, meaning it is now considered out of date and irrelevant. Third, providing abstracts means we can't actually critique their methodology and learn how the study was conducted in a real way. Many studies have found that there is no link at all. Four, the "causes" of most cancers are unknown, so all of these studies are corelational. Anyone claiming that an "abortion" causes breast cancer is full of shit. No research worth their salt ever makes that type of causative claim, it is always tentative. Fifth, as far as I can tell they rely on self-report. I can speak from experience and say that people who have cancer will look for a reason they developed it. That doesn't mean that reason is the cause, and they are likely to latch on to some "major" event.

On a related note, as a cancer survivor I find it despicable that cancer is being used to play this type of political game. This is nothing more than an attempt to play on societal fears about cancer to influence women considering getting an abortion. Put another way, this is discrimination in the form of ableism. It causes harm to those who have experienced cancer by furthering misinformation about the illness.

This is the problem when politics and science get mixed up.

Read the literature for yourself. All I did was grab the first two abstracts (then the 3rd-6th) and extract the relevant bits. I find it despicable that you dismiss facts out of hand simply because you don't know they're facts.

 

[CycloWizard]

Yes it is. How are we to know that your opinion is rooted in scientific evidence? Would your opinion change if the evidence was contrary?

You can't know what my opinions are rooted in any more than I can know what yours are rooted in. However, it's obvious that mine agree with fact, whether out of sheer luck or because that's how I formed them in the first place.

 

[Vette73]

They actually determined how such biases arise due to regional variations in religious populations and accounted for that in the study:

The bit you cited is their critique of previous studies which did not arrive at the same conclusion. You would know that if you weren't an illiterate knuckle dragger or knew anything about science, statistical analysis, or regression. I'm teaching a course on it in the spring - let me know if you're interested.

AGAIN your own link...

"With respect to induced abortion (termination of a pregnancy by artificial means), the results have been more inconclusive."

Again trying to tie 2 things together with no connection.

I guess you teaching a course in "illiterate knuckle dragger" is a good fit for you.

 

[zsdersw]

You can't know what my opinions are rooted in any more than I can know what yours are rooted in. However, it's obvious that mine agree with fact, whether out of sheer luck or because that's how I formed them in the first place.

You're right, I can't know about yours any more than you can know about mine.. so perhaps it's not best to, as you did in your first post in this thread, presume or imply what forms the opinions of others.

 

[CycloWizard]

AGAIN your own link...

"With respect to induced abortion (termination of a pregnancy by artificial means), the results have been more inconclusive."

Again trying to tie 2 things together with no connection.

I guess you teaching a course in "illiterate knuckle dragger" is a good fit for you.

That's in the introduction, numb nuts. They are setting the stage for why their study is superior - because they account for exactly that. Trolling douchebag.

 

[Vette73]

That's in the introduction, numb nuts. They are setting the stage for why their study is superior - because they account for exactly that. Trolling douchebag.

AGAIN your own links says at best its "inconclusive".

 

[CycloWizard]

You're right, I can't know about yours any more than you can know about mine.. so perhaps it's not best to, as you did in your first post in this thread, presume or imply what forms the opinions of others.

I provided facts in my first post. The OP posted the video because he found the claimed link completely outlandish - so outlandish that it couldn't possibly be true.