NEW YORK, Mar. 7, 2001 (LSN.ca) – In an article published in the current issue of The Post-Abortion Review, Dr. Joel Brind debunks the myth commonly used by pro-abortionists who say that “therapeutic abortions” are necessary for women diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Brind, a leading expert on the abortion-breast cancer link and head of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, notes studies have shown that pregnant women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and carry to term generally live longer than women who have abortions. In one study, while only 20 per cent of women who carried to term were still alive 20 years later, all of the patients who chose to abort had died within 11 years.
Brind hypothesizes that the lower death rate may be due to hormone changes in the last stages of pregnancy that switch the cells from a growth stage into a milk producing tissue. Since this hormonal change shuts down cell division (cancer is characterized by cell division that is out of control), this hormonal shutdown signal may be a powerful form of “natural chemotherapy.”
Since studies have consistently shown that women with gestational breast cancer are actually more likely to survive if they carry to term, how could any physician not strongly recommend against abortion? If their first concern was the welfare of the woman, they could do nothing else. But according to one surgeon cited by Brind, abortion is recommended not because it will benefit the woman but purely for the sake of destroying the child who might suffer from some ill effects of the mother’s chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
But even this eugenic “targeting” of the potentially “unfit” lacks any scientific merit. As Brind notes, numerous studies show that “the unborn child demonstrates a remarkable capacity to withstand aggressive maternal cancer therapy without ill effect.” After the first trimester of pregnancy, chemotherapy does not appear to increase the risk birth defects, and even in the first trimester, the risks of fetal harm are very low and can be further reduced with proper precautions.
For the full text of Brind’s article go to: https://198.78.170.85/news/2001/NRL02/joel.html