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WASHINGTON, D.C., February 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life leaders say on Sunday, Rick Santorum may have become the first major presidential candidate in history to address the link between abortion and breast cancer.

Asked whether he believed the Susan G. Komen Foundation should fund Planned Parenthood, Santorum replied, “I don’t believe that breast cancer research is advanced by funding an organization where you’ve seen ties to cancer and abortion. So, I don’t think it’s a particularly healthy way of contributing money to further cause of breast cancer.”

He added that, since the grants were administered by a non-profit philanthropy, it was “for a private organization like Susan G. Komen to make that decision.” Twenty-two U.S. senators wrote a letter asking the foundation to change its policy, and U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier raised the organization’s tax-exempt status on the House floor following its decision to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, made his remarks on Fox News Sunday.

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion-Breast Cancer, said she and other observers believe that is a first. “We’re thankful that he has mentioned the abortion-breast cancer link, because for a number of women in this country, it may be the first time they’ve heard it,” Malec told LifeSiteNews.com.

Doctors, she said, recognize that the loss or delay of a full-term pregnancy increases the likelihood that women will develop breast cancer. 

“52 out of 68 [epidemiological] studies now show” an independent link between abortion and breast cancer, as well, she added.

During pregnancy, the number of cancer-accessible lobules multiply as the breasts expand, she explained. “The risk increases every week up to 32 weeks of gestation, then there’s a dramatic drop in her breast-cancer risk.”

“Doctors already agree…the best way to prevent breast cancer is having an early, first full-term pregnancy,” combined with breast feeding, she said. 

Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, estimated last year that abortion had led to 300,000 deaths from breast cancer since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision – not counting deaths from abortions that delayed first full term pregnancies. 

Breast cancer rates have increased 40 percent since 1973, according to Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a clinical assistant professor of surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. 

Post-abortive women were shown to have tripled their chances of developing breast cancer in Sri Lanka.

U.S. National Cancer Institute researcher Dr. Louise Brinton, who once denied any link between abortion and breast cancer, changed her mind in 2010. 

Pro-life activists hope this will convince the Komen foundation to stop funding the abortion provider. “Although we share the same goals as the Susan G. Komen Foundation, they have been working against their mission,” Malec told LifeSiteNews. “Planned Parenthood is causing more breast cancer in this country.”