FARGO, ND, April 2, 2002 (LSN.ca) – An international women’s group today condemned the decision of North Dakota state court Judge Michael McGuire to deny life-saving medical information to abortion-bound women. In a lawsuit filed by Amy Jo Kjolsrud against the Fargo based Red River Women’s Clinic, McGuire ruled in favor of the clinic, which in 1999, when the suit was filed, was distributing a pamphlet claiming that there was no medical research associating abortion with breast cancer.
Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said “Judge McGuire’s decision denies women the right to informed consent. Women have the right to know that 28 out of 37 studies have linked abortion with breast cancer since 1957. What is the judge’s problem with telling women that much? Don’t we have the right to make autonomous health care decisions?”
Judge McGuire ruled that the defendant could rely on statements from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Cancer Society which do not recognize a causal relationship between abortion and the disease. Expert witnesses for the plaintiff had offered contrary evidence. Thirteen of 15 U.S. studies report elevated risk. Most of these were funded at least in part by the NCI.
The NCI’s fact sheets, discussing the research (the latest of which – not coincidentally – was revised less than three weeks before the trial), have been severely criticized by Joel Brind, Ph.D., president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer and former Congressman Tom Coburn, MD. The federal agency was accused of lying about the research paid for by taxpayers on two fact sheets in a March 20, 2002 press release issued by the coalition and by Dr. Brind, an endocrinologist. They are published on these coalition web pages: https://abortionbreastcancer.com/press_releases.htm https://abortionbreastcancer.com/Public_Policy.htm