“Debating” the Abortion-Breast Cancer Link with “Liberals”
Two days ago David Drumm, guest-blogging at Turley, noting my last post‘s link to his post about Komen, wrote in a comment on his post:
Looks like the link to my post is pushing woo regarding a link between induced abortion and breast cancer. Guess I’ve got a topic for one of tomorrow’s posts.
I responded in a comment:
I am looking forward to it. Maybe you will follow the truth wherever it leads. Maybe you won’t.
My latter prediction proved the correct one, as Drumm’s guest post yesterday was titled Lying For Jesus: The Abortion/Breast Cancer Link. I called Drumm a liar in my first comment on that post, which predictably led to a long and acrimonious comment thread there, and a battle of links to various places on the internet. My participation wound down with this comment addressed to me by someone calling herself “idealist707”:
What you are doing is prevaricating on a large scale.
Did you really have hopes that you could start a legal case accusing the state,et al for misleading women who have abortions and later get breast cancer, on the basis of information withholding, a la cigarettes and lung cancer?
And you lost money on it too, you say on your site?Stop beating a dead horse. The bell has rung. Go get a new life as confirmation of you worth. You won’t find support here for your false-flagging of concern for breast cancer patients who were denied knowledge of the effects of abortions.
Well, when my law review comment was distributed to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives by a Congressman / M.D. along with a letter urging them to read it, which I don’t believe typically happens to law review comments, my hopes for successful litigation went up significantly.
As I also indicate on my site, I’ve long ago washed my hands of this issue, and have, as you suggest I do, moved on. After all, not only has the “breast cancer awareness” movement and the “pro-choice” movement long known the facts underlying this issue, so has the so-called “pro-life” movement, and contrary to popular belief the latter movement has for the most part done precious little about it over the years. It doesn’t really fit in with its agenda and its priorities. If none of these people care about it, why should I?
It’s an understatement to say I “won’t find support here” for what I’m saying, no matter how true it might be. It’s a rather inconvenient truth. I was quite naive when I started this whole thing. I figured everyone, liberals included, would agree that women considering abortion had the right to be informed about this information prior to undergoing an abortion. (Indeed, all of my fellow law students on the editorial board of the law review who decided to publish my comment were “pro-choice,” and you can bet they rigorously scrutinized it prior to agreeing to publish it.) Boy was I wrong. I had yet to discover that abortion, and any perceived threat to its legitimacy, trumped everything, and especially trumped the rights and autonomy of women who have abortions.
I didn’t go out of my way to pick this fight here. But I think I’ve made my point.
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John,
I’m wondering how those sources cited by Drumm can even conclude there’s no causal link between the two. Isn’t it well-accepted that completing a pregnancy reduces the risk of breast cancer? That alone means that an abortion increases a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer by negating the positive, prophylactic effect of a completed pregnancy. (Not to mention the negative effects of an abortion that you discuss in your Comment.)
1Ryan,
Exactly. And by the way, that abrogation of the protective effect of childbirth, which is undisputed, by itself proves the falsity of the abortion industry’s regular claim that abortion is ten times “safer” than childbirth.
2