These same Pro-Lifers believe it’s OK & part of God’s plan to freeze embryos in liquid nitrogen so they may have a 15% chance of getting pregnant someday. The fact that thousands of these embryos die is not a concern to the Pro-Life movement. There are other Sanhedrin members to keep Steve company.

Suspended animation in liquid nitrogen is Pro-Arrogance and Pro-Selfishness, not Pro-Life.

Why can’t God be respected enough in His obvious decision to have chosen “exhibit couple A” to remain infertile…….for a reason? Live with it people. That’s what you asked the victims of rape and incest to do. Man up.

And c’mon, your concerns about pro-life strategy seem just a bit half-hearted. The crazies, for lack of a better word, drive the policy on both sides of the issue — the difference is that the pro-choicers know that judges will rubber stamp just about all of it. Pro-life leaders could be credited for being open and honest on the matter, instead of using a shady, incremental approach. Ultimately (and especially considering that the post was about SGK and donations to Planned Parenthood), you seem to be in favor of pro-lifers doing little more than…moderating their views.

I’m all for universal rights, but they’re usually universally agreed upon. Additionally, we have a system of limited and separated powers in which we determine what is, and what isn’t. Griswold firmly rooted the right to contraception in the penumbra of privacy extending from the emanations of the Bill of Rights. Oh yeah. And in Roe, Justice Blackmun discovered a universal right after spending a summer reading medical texts, and did it so well that since we’ve enjoyed dozens of essays and books basically entitled “What Roe Should Have Said.” Oddly, we continue to discover rationales for Roe decades after the ink was dry. Living constitution, indeed.

I appreciate that you’re conflicted about PP. But we’re way past a “right” or “access to” abortion. Everything must subsume itself to this sacrament. Taxpayer funding, check. Overseas funding, how could we not? Parental notification? Outrageous, but we’ll pretend to have one — it will just have a robust “judicial bypass.” Need more? Partial birth abortion, nurses performing abortion, rights of conscience. Abortion isn’t a right — it’s a party platform unto itself. Heck, it’s so important to kill kids in the womb that we’ll let kids die who are actually BORN AND ALIVE if it might interfere with the prime directive.

Ultimately, what surprises me most about Planned Parenthood is that it gets away with something that virtually no other organization in civil society could get away with. Let’s leave aside the lack of crime reporting, the issues over ignoring subpoenas, or that it soaks the government for $300 million per year (we should really call it “Big Abortion,” to crib a term)…forget the PP donor managers playing ‘yes men’ to the phone callers pretending to be racist…what stuns me about Planned Parenthood is that perhaps no other organization could continue to function if the views of its founder was even half as bad as what Margaret Sanger wrote and advocated. Let alone give out an award in her name*.

But of course, this is the history of abortion. Built on lies, rooted in sand, it will forever require fresh blood to satisfy it. It consumed law to get what it needed, has almost destroyed politics (what did the Senate Judiciary Committee talk about before 1973?), and will move on to the next victim. I’m guessing it will be the judiciary itself, once we start electing judges. Oh well.

Well I’ve taken us off track with this talk about how abortion consumes and corrupts anything it touches. We were talking about why the nation’s largest breast cancer charity gives money to the nation’s largest abortionist.

* MLK won the Margaret Sanger award back in ‘66. Plenty irony there. Did I mention it consumes and corrupts?

Crazy.

“You want demonstrably false? That this discussion is about rape and incest.”

That’s what I was on about from the beginning. Sanhedrin Steve pushed it, as Kim did later (again, “most” pro-lifers? So far, you’re the only one), that there should be no exception for rape and incest, and that the rape victime should just buck up and have the rapist’s child.

If the GOP put it into their platform that there should be exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother (I checked, it’s not in there, not even mentioned in 2008 platform) we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion – but the mainstream anti-abortion lobby won’t permit this. If you hand the reigns over to the crazies, expect to see your horses going over the cliff.

“I guess we need to have a little chat with Planned Parenthood about unreported crimes.”

Am I conflicted that PP doesn’t report underage girls getting abortions? You bet.

“It’s legal (or should I say, it remains legal in many jurisdictions, since abortion was not universally banned in 1973) because the Supreme Court (as with Griswold) believed they should have the say about it.”

Because some jursdictions DIDN’T allow it. Two sets of laws are not permissible in the United States. Either something is a universal right, or it isn’t. As soon as the pro-life movement eases the hell up on forcing women to carry rape babies, or children who’s birth will kill the mother, maybe they’ll gain some traction.

You want demonstrably false? That this discussion is about rape and incest. If that is what we’re talking about, I guess we need to have a little chat with Planned Parenthood about unreported crimes.

And you don’t need to take my word on Roe. See Justice Ginsburg’s quote regarding the effects of “heavy-handed jurisprudence.”

Post-Roe, abortion isn’t legal because people want it –it doesn’t really matter what people think of abortion or pro-lifers, since they have essentially no say in the matter. It’s legal (or should I say, it remains legal in many jurisdictions, since abortion was not universally banned in 1973) because the Supreme Court (as with Griswold) believed they should have the say about it.

From the Arizona Right to Life website – verbatim:

“Abortion – Arizona Right to Life opposes abortion because it unjustly takes the life of a developing human being and does not support abortion as an adequate solution to pregnancies that are unplanned, unwanted, or the result of rape or incest.”

It’s not part of the GOP platform, it’s not part of the “mainstream” RTL movement, and fun fact – I can’t even get David Schwiekert’s campaign office (I just called!) to confirm whether or not he supports an exception for rape and incest.

So don’t sell me this line of crap about “gladly, willingly, immediately” when it’s demonstrably false.

This is why abortion remains legal – because Americans DO NOT TRUST the pro-life movement. If Roe v Wade is overturned, the next on the RTL hitlist is Griswold v Connecticut, and then God knows what else.

But, of course, we’re really not talking about those women who are in those positions.

We’re talking about 1+ million killings per year, protected by American law. Glad the S. Ct. brought this whole matter to consensus.

Long story short, date rape is exactly what happened to me. I was seventeen, a buddy of mine from work invited me to her birthday party, and within five minutes of walking through the door I was dosed up with ghb, though I didn’t realize that for several years. I don’t know if it was a random selection thing, or what, and I described the situation for months as ‘I think I was raped. It might’ve been rape. It felt like rape. But I’m not sure it was rape.’ I think the cruelest thing that was said to me during that time frame (possibly the cruelest thing I’ve ever been told, ever) was when another friend of mine said the guy involved was coming by work, and I told her about the incident, and her response was ‘well, at least you’re taking responsibility for your part in it.’ It continued to fuel my self-recriminations for months.

I didn’t even know about the phrase ‘date rape’ until I picked up a cosmo magazine that featured an article on it a year and a half later, and even then, it took me a long time to accept the fact that, yes, that was what had happened to me.

If there’s a better way of explaining the complete and utter failure that is sexual education in this country, I’ve yet to hear it.

I can think of no greater example to express the “Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life” argument.

There will never be a time when the Pro-Life side ceases to accuse the Pro-Choice side of being Pro-Abortion, even after reading such a heartbreaking story as Kat’s. We know that she really only gave us a few highlights here and let’s assume the real truth is much more vivid.

Pro-Abortion is the most overused and abused oxymoron in the English language.

I’ve never met a Pro-Abortion person in my life. However, I have known women like Kat and attended college with a couple serial date-rapists who lived in my dormitory. Of course we didn’t call it that back then but we can say it now. All bite marks, scratches, mussed hair and torn clothes aside…..the guys I saw bore no resemblance to the violence and brutality they must’ve inflicted on unsuspecting ladies. They could’ve cared less that they left a broken young lady to suffer for the rest of her life. Their nervous hubris was proof that it wasn’t about sex.

Not until the same number of violent random rapes or acquaintance rapes are committed on men (via the only available entry point) will they understand or remotely empathize with women. The possibility of pregnancy is null – but the physical and emotional scars should last for a generation or two.

It made me sick in college and it makes me sick now to hear the arrogant vultures swarming to pick apart their targeted carcass when “discussing” this issue. The men like Sanhedrin Steve aren’t more moral than us, just more scary.

Speaking from experience (not on the specific count at hand, but both as having had an abortion and as having been raped) no matter what the situation, the after effects of having been is hell on earth. There are few acts that one human being can do to another that are more degrading, traumatizing, debasing, or complete in their ability to completely shatter someone’s opinion of themselves. To say that a child beget from such a situation is not just the “rapist’s child” is akin to saying that Jesus was not “just” the son of God. Not that that isn’t true, but the implied statement makes it obvious that the man stating it has never seen a woman as an equal to himself, nor truly considered the feelings of one. Sex is not just a physical act, especially from a woman’s perspective, and rape does account for a lifetime of “hell on earth”, because it is virtually impossible to get over. Five years later, I still stutter when telling people about the first time I was. It took me almost three of those years to build any kind of self-worth and any modicrum of a decent self-image back together.

The physical act of abortion, that most people don’t comprehend, is that it is, in and of itself, another one of the most painful and humiliating acts a woman can ever put herself through, and the hormone-induced aftershocks are in a league of their own. Admittedly, there are women who go back into that situation time and time again without a second thought, and there are women who, for one reason or another, will be forced to, but I feel confident in making the statement that nine out of every ten women who walk into an abortion clinic swear to themselves that they will do everything in their power not to be in that position again, but I’d say that virtually every woman you ever see in one of those waiting rooms is in there for a completely unique reason, and the majority of them are entirely justified, be it from an insurmountable drug addiction, to poverty level income or homelessness, to abusive boyfriends or incurable STD’s. I’ve come to the conclusion, over time, that men (particularly politicians) still have little to no faith in women’s ability to make their own decisions, especially in their ability to make the right ones. We have been mothers for all of eternity, and it’s fairly well ingrained in our psyche how to take care of the fruits of our labors, as it were. Darwinism claims that ‘save the children first’ is a genetic suicide, and poor parenting, on many of our parts, has ingrained us with unshakeable beliefs as to what situations we refuse to bring a child into the world under.

Any psychiatrist worth their salt will tell you that the last thing you do to a woman who has been raped is refuse her her ability, any ability, to attempt to take control of the situation and what has happened. The suicide attempts between women who have legally filed a claim over the situation and the ones who haven’t, in up to a year and a half after the incident, are absolutely staggering. And if a legal claim is filed, depending on the time frame, STD testing and emergency contraceptives are administered, depending on the municipal system, up to entirely at the state or the defendent’s expense. The problem is that there are still entirely too many women who still never legally claim these situations, and the reasons for those are as many and varied as the situations themselves.

People can battle over the legality of abortion as much as they like. It is merely a symptom of one of the greatest problems in our society, and not the problem itself. Making it illegal will do nothing but up the number of pregnant women crossing one border or the other to get the procedure, or, in the cases of those who can’t afford such actions, taking the matters entirely, and far more dangerously, into their own hands.

And thanks Kral and Bob, and keep up the good work.

Although I’m sure Sanhedrin Steve is much more moral than us.

And Todd, you have done a marvelous job unraveling the total hoaxes that conservatives place out there with websites.

Time after time again they have had a big money conservative start a website “group” that touts false information. Then they link it to conservatives through their little networks so that they can hang their hat on this false information and satisfy their base.

It is also why they hate colleges and universities so much. People can go on believing this sham until people like you, Todd, unravel it and others actually hear about facts and science in higher education.

You’re right, besides you – we are all men discussing this, so perhaps men ought to stop trying to enforce their personal points of view on women – and to broaden that, maybe all men and women should stop trying to enforce their personal points of view.

Over at my LJ, we’re discussing this, and I hope my friend gives me permission to repost/excerpt her response.

But to address your point about looking into the face of the attacker – what about the nine months of ob/gyn care, the lifetime of childcare – who’s going to take care of that?

Here’s something I’d like a show of hands on: If a woman is raped, becomes pregnant, and keeps the child – who would be in favor of medical coverage and living expenses being covered by the government until age 18? After all, the woman who was raped had no choice in the matter.

Also, what Kim also forgets is that the rapist may try to fight for custody. THe rapist could try to contact the child and mother.

2. Estrogen and Breast Cancer Risk
None of these articles address ABC link

3. Studies showing link between delayed first full term pregnancy and breast cancer
These deal with the affect of age of first birth and breast cancer. The second one the article from MacMahon from 1970 is quoted as saying – “suggested increased risk associated with abortion — contrary to the reduction in risk associated with full-term births.” While these words do appear in the article they are not what the article concludes but rather anecdotal evidence about why they wanted to look at the first birth and not first pregnancy. To claim the data from the study revealed this is a straight up lie.

4. Studies which did not show an increased risk
OK but they don’t even begin to list all the studies.

5. Other Studies of Interest
Have nothing about ABC link.

6. Miscellaneous
Irrelevant

7. Studies Which Reported More Than a Twofold Elevation in risk
They list 7 studies here.
a. One has an unavailable abstract and is from 1957.
b. Study from 1981 which has been discredited because of response bias. Later studies, Lazovich for instance, have not shown this.
c. Study in Japanese. Can’t evaluate.
d. Laing from 1993 – article is not available
e. Laing from 1994 – this is actually not an article but in a list of abstracts.

I would note all of these were looked at in a Review of data by Karin B. Michels and Walter C. Willett Epidemiology, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Sep., 1996), pp. 521-528 . (note this article is not listed anywhere on the page) and they concluded that a review of these studies shows that “[s]tudies to date are inadequate to infer with confidence the relation between induced or spontaneous abortion and breast cancer risk, but it appears that any such relation is likely to be small or nonexistent.” Also Wingo, et al “The risk of breast cancer following spontaneous or induced abortion” in Cancer Causes and Control, 1997, 8:1, pp 93-108 has a review of studies and concludes the same. Or what about Bartholomew, Lynne L.; Grimes, David A. “Focus on Primary Care: The Alleged Association Between Induced Abortion and Risk of Breast Cancer: Biology or Bias? ” Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey. 53(11):708-714, November 1998

8. Other Studies Which Show Increased Risk
Some articles here I have already pointed out specifically do not conclude there is an ABC link.

I must admit, I am losing my patience at this point. There is so much deceit going on here it is unbelievable. I would be happy to look at more evidence for this supposed link, but I am not going to respond to anymore to huge lists filled with irrelevant or misrepresented articles. If someone believes they have a good source I don’t believe I need to wade through all of the junk – tell me what articles point to link and why.

Women carry the baby and with every subsequent pregnancy, they are reminded over and over of the life they ended. As a woman with more than a few friends and family members who fell victim to the lie that it is not a life and your health is the issue, and all the other garbage…that are now living with the reality of their actions; these women I pray for and ask God to give them peace.

I have friends who have been victims of rape; it is a deadly event, too. I cannot say it does not carry with it the burden of shame and feelings of disgrace that spill over onto all areas of trust and intimacy. Someone please tell me how killing a baby, a baby that is without sin, appeases those feelings and eliminates that pain? Do not be so smug as to fall back on the old cliché’ of looking at the face of your attacker…that is such crap.

The site Shane references is more than enough to show, the conclusion cannot be made that abortion has nothing to do with breast cancer. If the Komen Foundation wants to support women’s breast health, there are many ways to do it that do not involve supplanting funds that then can be used for killing babies.

This link should answer your question.

http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/ABC_Research/index.htm

I would love to list every study here but it would take up way too much space.

First of all, it would have been more accurate to have said that eight anti-abortion medical organization recognizes a link. Of the 8 medical organizations listed seven of them have a clearly stated agenda against abortion. The eight organization, Ethics and Medics, has a dead link so I am unable to evaluate.

Actually, I think it is deceptive to call some of these anti-abortion medical organizations because what some really seem to be are anti-abortion , anti-gay, etc. organizations that happen to be run by people with medical degrees. That doesn’t really qualify them as medical organizations, so perhaps it would be best to simply call these groups organizations.

So, what we have are 7 organizations that claim there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. Now, just because an organization has an agenda does not mean that its statements are wrong so let’s look at what type of evidence is presented.

1. National Physicians Center for Family Resources
As far as I can tell, I see no statement anywhere on their website stating a link, so there is no way to evaluate the claim.

2. Catholic Medical Association
The only evidence I can find on their site are links to articles published in WorldNetDaily, which I don’t think is a credible source for scientific research.

3. American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
The only thing I can find on their site is a letter written in 2002 to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists trying to convince ACOG to change their claim that there is not an ABC (abortion breast cancer) link. Just for perspective, ACOG has 52,000 members and is the largest professional organization for those in health care for women. The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists site does not indicate how many members it has, but it does appear that they are hosting a conference in Jan 2009 at the highly esteemed medical venue – Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale FL. The conference statement says it will host “…updates from experts in a number of disciplines exploring the relationship of abortion to adverse medical and psychological effects in women.” I guess those with differing opinions are not allowed.

Anyway, the 2002 letter gives a list of articles which they claim show an ABC link. I wanted to look into this so I started with the most recent which is from 2000.

Lazovich D, Thompson JA, Mink PJ, Sellers TA, Anderson KE.Induced abortion and breast cancer risk. Epidemiology. 2000;11(1):76-80.

I searched for this article and found it here:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1733063

Note what the conclusion from the abstract states, here it is in full:

“Conclusion: These data do not support the hypothesis that miscarriage or induced abortion represent substantive risk factors for the future development of breast cancer.”

So they cite a study which actually does not demonstrate what they claim it does. Most people call that lying.

4. Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
I don’t see any scientific publications by this group, they have a “fact sheet” that claims the Lazovich, et al article shows and ABC link and also cite work by Daling which clearly states no causal link can be shown.

5. The Polycarp Research Institute
As far as I can tell this is 3 people. They do state up front that “TPRI will support research efforts that improve the spiritual condition of men and women, and will not promote methods or intentions that are inconsistent with the ethical and moral guidelines of the Catholic Church…”

They have no scientific articles but have a FAQ on ABC which again cites articles they claim show “…an Induced Abortion Increases Risk of Breast Cancer.” However, several of these articles, the Daling for instance, state quite clearly that no casual link can be confirmed.

6. MaterCare International
In the statement quoted, MaterCare International claims it is an “an international group of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists” without noting that it is in fact an association of Catholic Obstetricians and Gynaecologists as it states on its website. Again, this doesn’t mean that they are wrong, but why the deception?

I can’t find what evidence they based their claim on from their website so I have no idea how to evaluate it. In the statement quoted, they claim Brind shows the link but only provide evidence from their own journal.

7. Breast Care Center-EAMC
This is a group in the Philippines and there seems to be no evidence it cites to support any claim.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing here which disproves the position of the National Cancer Institute and many other large medical organizations that there is no ABC link. I do see a great deal of evidence that those who wish to make abortion illegal will distort facts and lie and wish to deceive women about abortion.