Diocesan Resources
Abortion and Breast Cancer: The Link that Won't Go Away by Dr. Angela Lanfranchi (2007)
Abortion and Breast Cancer: The Link that Won't Go Away by Angela Lanfranchi, M.D., FACS, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Vice-President and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. She has been in private practice of surgery since 1984 and specializes in the treatment of breast cancer.
There are many well established and well-known causes of breast cancer, such as inheriting a BRCA gene (a defective gene associated with increased breast cancer risk) and being exposed to oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy. There are lesser known risks of breast cancer such as cigarette smoking before a full term pregnancy and induced abortion. But just as only 15% of people who smoke will get lung cancer and only about 5 – 10% of women with breast cancer develop this cancer because they had an abortion, we should still advise the public of these avoidable risks, however small. Women need this information to make informed choices and to understand when to get screened for cancer if they are at increased risk, beginning approximately 8 to 10 years after the risk was taken.