Beauty and Style
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Judge to Rule on Abortion, Breast Cancer Link
topic has generated heat in cities around the country. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, says her organization worked in the past to have public transportation ads pulled in Philadelphia that warned, "Women who choose abortion will suffer more and deadlier breast cancer." CHRIST"s Bride, Ministries, a nonprofit, religious education group had sponsored the ads. Gandy says she would like to see future studies that fully factor in a woman"s reproductive history. "We know that early pregnancy has a protective effect against breast cancer and this will need to be factored into future studies that compare women"s risks," Gandy said. Michels is currently working on a study of 700,000 women that factors in their reproductive histories and expects to have her results by fall of 2002. The study will look at comparable groups of women, such as those who had a child by age 25, and then break that group into those who had an abortion and those who did not. In the meantime, a new editorial published in Lancet Oncology by breast surgeon Tim Davidson argues that the current evidence is insufficient to justify a warning to patients considering an abortion--a view he says is endorsed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The Lancet Oncology editorial may bode well for the Red River Women"s clinic in Fargo and more research into breast cancer may ultimately improve prevention, detection and treatment. Harvard"s Michels says that the end point of all the research is the female patient. "At the end of the day this is about a search for the truth, whatever truth that is," she says. Margaret Woodbury is a freelance journalist based in New York. For more information:National Cancer Institute"Abortion and Breast Cancer":http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/3_53.htm Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. "Anti-choice Claims About Abortion and Breast Cancer":http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/facts/fact_cancer_022800.html Concerned Women for America"Abortion Clinic on Trial":http://cwfa.org/library/life/2001-09-10_abc-link.shtmlPages: 1 [2]