The Lie That Won't -- But Should -- Die

My heart sank a few days ago when I saw yet another headline in the fetus freak media SHRIEEEKING about the abortion=breast cancer (ABC) link-lie. Not because I expected anything other than the usual half-baked BS, but because I've taken on the Sisyphean task of refuting every new -- and they come around like clockwork every couple of years -- AMAZING STUDY that "proves" abortion causes breast cancer.

After I read beyond the headline, I realized it was just Angela Lanfranchi flapping her gums and re-upping her anti-choice creds. Nothing new.

But I got thinking about it from another angle.

Why do they keep doing this? The ABC link has been repeatedly, exhaustively, comprehensively trashed by major medical research organizations every time the freaks roll it out.

Every time.

Yet they keep it up. We know they are desperate for any shred of credibility, so why would they keep thumping this absolutely worthless piece of BAD (biased, agenda-driven) science? It can do nothing but further marginalize their stable of paid pet pseudo-scientists.

So, I wondered, does it work? What does it do for them?

Well, if it is intended to dissuade women from abortion, it's not doing much. In fact, according to anti-choice's own stats, very little is helping on that front.

Amanda Marcotte quotes researcher Nicole Knight Shine:

“Of the 2.6 million clients who visited crisis pregnancy centers since 2004, 3.52 percent, or 92,679 people, decided against having an abortion,” Shine writes. Yep, out of all the women that CPCs themselves describe as “clients who came to the center with initial intentions of Abortion or Undecided and then changed their mind to carry baby to term,” fewer than 4% were deterred by anti-choice propaganda.

Fewer than 4%.

Not even the Magical Ultrasound helps. The freaks have a mystical reverence for ultrasound. They've convinced legislatures in the US to force women to view these murky images, usually with narration of a bullshit script on fetal development written by politicians.

But a recent study investigated whether such viewing changes minds. Surprise, it does not. Under conditions where women were given the choice to view the images or not, of those who chose to see them, 98% went ahead with termination.

Groups such as the Fetal Gore Porn Gang (aka CCBR) insist that graphic anti-abortion images "work", but offer no evidence, just assertion.

I kept looking.

I found tons of studies on the reasons given by people for their abortions. But no studies on reasons given for rejecting abortion.

Lots of anecdotal stories from the freak media. "I just couldn't," "Jeezus spoke to me," etc. but no studies.

(Yes, yes, I know. A negative can't be proven.)

When I finally hit on the search term "abortion-minded women," I thought I might be getting somewhere. ("Abortion-minded" is an anti-choice classification for people stumbling into fake clinics. The others are "abortion-vulnerable" and "likely to carry.")

This search turned up a bunch of pages of advice for sidewalk harassers and fake-clinic bullies. Some of them are hilarious. Like this one, "Reaching the Post-Modern Abortion-Minded Client". Note use (bolded by me) of "girls."

In the 1950s, if you were counseling an abortion-minded woman, you would probably appeal to her sense of morality. Abortion is illegal. Abortion kills your baby. Simply put, abortion is wrong.

Much has changed in five decades. Now, abortion is not only legal, but also staunchly protected by the nation's highest courts. Whether or not abortion is wrong simply depends on your religious preference or political leanings.

A new wave of abortion-minded clients is appearing at pregnancy care centers across the country. These girls have been taught to reject any form of universal morality. These girls grew up believing that having an abortion is as easy as taking a pill. Therefore, pregnancy care centers will have to dramatically change their methods in order to reach these post-modern young women.

It goes on in similarly patronizing and totally out-of-touch style for ten more paragraphs. It concludes:

If current trends continue, public schools will become even greater bastions of post-modern, anti-biblical thought. Abortion, as well as many other sinful choices, will become even more acceptable. Children will be raised with even less biblical and moral upbringing. Pregnancy care centers need to prepare their staff for this shift in American culture, and come up with new ways to reach the post-modern (and very needy) client.

It was published in 2009 and the author promised a follow-up, "The Secret to Counseling the Abortion-Minded Client," but I couldn't find it. I guess the secret proved a little more elusive than she thought -- as evidenced by the dismal 3.52% success rate cited above.

None of the similar helpful advice pages I found included any reference to breast cancer. So, it seems they're not using the ABC lie on the front-lines.

And really, when women are prepared to put their lives at risk to escape forced reproduction, what's a little future breast cancer possible increase?

Back in 2002, Joyce Arthur crunched what we know to be the totally made-up numbers, specifically the 30% increase that Joel Brind, the granddaddy of this scam, still clings to.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose that Brind's ABC link is real. What would it really mean? He claims that abortion may boost the risk of breast cancer by 30%, but this increase is not really that significant anyway. For example, the risk is two to three times higher (200 to 300%) for a woman whose mother or sister had breast cancer after age 50. Even this well-established risk factor is considered moderate by scientists. In comparison, the alleged ABC link barely qualifies—even if it's real, the risk is close to negligible. To put it another way, the National Cancer Institute estimates the current risk of breast cancer to be 1 in 2,525 for a woman in her 30's—if that risk was increased by 30%, it means 1 in 1,942 women would get breast cancer.

But they do not. Because abortion does NOT cause breast cancer.

Still this canard keeps coming around.

The only possible conclusion is that its impact is mostly on legislators and conspiracy nuts. ("What the abortion industry doesn't want you to know."*) For individuals, it's just more of the usual stigmatizing and fear-mongering. But without any resulting dissuasion. Just, you know, torture.

It's not only not my job but counter-productive to advise the freaks on tactics. But in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Hellerstedt decision, in which the notion that making abortion more difficult to access somehow "protects" women was decisively smacked around and kicked down the stairs, they might want to consider abandoning the ABC lie.

But that's just wishful thinking, I guess. I'm so sick of this.

What would be very useful to know is what convinces pregnant people who are considering termination not to. Someone should get at that 3.52% and find out what changed their minds.




*The conspiracy nuts have a new vehicle. It's a film called "Hush" made by a Canadian filmmaker, featuring Kay Mère on her ABC soap-box, and funded by the Alberta government. Or so the filmmakers claim and the Alberta government denies. I'll get to that in a future post.

BAD Science in a (Twitter) Nutshell

The brouhaha over recent "explosive" data from Asia absotively proving the Abortion = Breast Cancer (ABC) link continues.

The Chinese study, eviscerated by Joyce Arthur here, fatally flawed by many scientific sins, but most egregiously (and obviously even to a lay-person) is Joel Brind's bland dismissal of the fundamental contradiction in it. (See Joyce's article for details.)

So what do lying liars do when challenged? Brind, the grandaddy of the ABC lie, doubles down.

The Bhadoria study of 320 breast cancer patients and 320 age and socio-economic status-matched healthy control women reported a 403% increased risk of getting breast cancer among Indian women who have had any abortions. Not only is this increase much larger than what had been reported in the Huang meta-analysis (44%) and by my colleagues and I in our worldwide meta-analysis of 1996 (30%), but it closely matches the 538% among Indian women reported earlier in 2013 by Dr. Ramchandra Kamath et al.

Also in 2013, Dr. S. Jabeen and colleagues reported a risk increase of almost 2,000% among women in Bangladesh!

Taken collectively, the studies from Asia should completely abolish any lingering credibility of the US National Cancer Institute’s politically correct” dictum that there is no ABC link.

From 30% to 44% to 403% to 538% to 2000% increase in breast cancer caused by abortion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(By the way, all reputable cancer research organizations categorically refute any such causation.)

The main flaw with all ABC BS studies is something called "recall bias". Google it and you'll find that it applies to all kinds of research in which patients are asked to remember their or their children's medical details, including birth defects, vaccination, Gulf War Syndrome, etc. etc.

But Brind et al. insist that recall bias is a conspiracy cooked up by pro-choice researchers and applied only to their own abortion "research".

So, as a non-scientist, I was going to go into all kinds of tedious detail about what recall bias is and isn't, when I thought to ask famed bullshit-detector PZ Myers to comment. After all, he has taken on the BAD (biased, agenda-driven) science of the anti-choice movement before.

He replied promptly.

.@fernhilldammit @CoyneoftheRealm Asian women must have exotic endocrinology, or it’s bullshit.

— PZ Myers (@pzmyers) January 18, 2014

And thus shortened this blog-post considerably. Thanks, PZ. (I'm sure our readers will thank you too.)

UPDATE: And here's James Coyne, author of a multi-part spanking of Priscilla Coleman for the equally dishonest abuse of statistics.

@fernhilldammit @pzmyers RE 2000% increase in breast cancer. dishonest abuse of statistics, http://t.co/A8aoS5SpBU

— James C.Coyne (@CoyneoftheRealm) January 19, 2014

BAD Science Debunked: Abortion Does NOT Cause Breast Cancer

Back in early December, when Babs Kay hitched her anti-feminism agenda again to yet another BAD (biased, agenda-driven) study purporting to link abortion and breast cancer again, DJ! took her on.

Joyce Arthur of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada weighed in on the comments, promising a fuller analysis of the study.

Here it is. It is excellent.

The anti-choice movement has been making a lot of noise over a new study out of China, published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, that purports to show a 44 percent increase in breast cancer risk for women who have had an abortion, with the risk increasing after each subsequent abortion. The study claims this may help explain the “alarming” rise in breast cancer in China over the past 20 years, which parallels the one-child policy introduced in 1979.

She proceeds to demolish its methodology, explaining the various kinds of known biases associated with this sort of study, including recall bias. Simply put, recall bias occurs when the two groups (the "cases," women who have or have had breast cancer, vs. the "controls", women who haven't) recall their medical histories differently. The "cases" are more likely to offer full details, while the "controls" may downplay their own abortion history. The problem is exacerbated by the level of abortion stigma associated in a culture.

She highlights this doozie.

Anti-choice activist Dr. Joel Brind has been promoting the ABC [abortion/breast cancer] association for over two decades. He claims that the Chinese study “neutralized” the recall bias argument. But Brind missed—or chose not to mention—that the journal article contained a confusing error, one that helped to hide the study’s own recall bias shortcomings. Early on, the study authors say:

The lack of a social stigma associated with induced abortion in China may limit the amount of underreporting.

But later in the study, the authors say:

[T]he self-reported number of IA [induced abortions] will probably be underestimated, as the stigma of abortion still exists in China, especially when a woman has more than two IAs. Therefore, this underestimation will inevitably create spurious associations between IA and breast cancer, especially for more IAs.

These two contradictory statements should never have gotten past the peer reviewers.

There are other fatal methodological flaws in the study and Joyce's article also links to other interesting work over the years and from several countries with widely differing abortion and breast cancer rates and attitudes towards abortion.

In short, many researchers have looked into the ABC link and it simply does not bear up under scrutiny.

As I've said many times before, this kind of bullshit needs to be called out every time it appears. It is unconscionable and irresponsible to appear to be using objective science to, as Joyce says, "to reinforce abortion stigma and frighten women."

And, of course, it's laughably hypocritical for fetus fetishists to wring their hands in pious concern for the well-being of women who have abortions when in other contexts, they delight in calling us "sluts" and "baby murderers".

So, while splendid analyses like this will change no anti minds, it should reassure women who have had or are contemplating having an abortion.

ABORTION DOES NOT CAUSE BREAST CANCER.

No. This Isn't the Game Changer.

Yawn.

Babs Kay is on her ABC (abortion = breast cancer) bullshit soap box Again. (That's a Do Not Link link, which I am going to use for all sites I don't want to get hits.)

This time she's citing a meta-study out of China -- where, you know, the health care system, abortion regime, environment, etc. etc. is exactly like North America.

Problem with this study is, as usual, its methodology, not to mention the obvious flaws in trying to compare these societies.

Short version: same old crap dressed up yet again as The Game Changer !!!!!!!!

Um. No.

Let's hear from an epidemiologist with the American Cancer named Susan Gapstur.

"The findings of this meta-analysis should be viewed with caution," Dr. Susan Gapstur told The Wire in an email. Gapstur is the vice president of epidemiology at the American Cancer Society. She notes that almost all of the studies cited in Dr. Huang's analysis used something called the case-control method, which tends to produce misleading results. In the case of the abortion-breast cancer link, women with breast cancer who self-report their reproductive histories tend to do so more accurately than women who are cancer-free. And in countries like China, where abortion still carries a significant stigma, that "recall bias" can be reinforced. "This 'recall bias' can make it look like breast cancer is associated with abortion when it is not," Gapstur explains. Case-control methods, it should be noted, have produced links between breast cancer and induced abortion before.

Further, the most reliable studies in the mega-study do NOT find a link.

All but two of the studies included in Huang's analysis used the case-control method. The remaining two were prospective cohort studies, which track women over time, instead of relying on self-reported historical results. Those two studies, Gapstur notes, did not find a link between abortion and breast cancer. In fact, the eight studies that appear to be the most reliable of the group found no link between induced abortion and breast cancer risk. "The association only became apparent as the quality of the studies decreased," Gapstur told The Wire, noting that some of the included studies were not published in peer-reviewed publications. In other words, the work might not be vetted by independent professionals in the field.

Over at Lifeshite, Joel Brind, granddaddy of ABC himself, calls Dr Gapstur an 'epidemiologist'. Gee, I dunno, she looks pretty well qualified to me.

I'm sure you are as bored by this as I am, but I take it as a duty to call them out. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

And, really, Babs should be ashamed of herself, peddling this fear and worry to women year after year, despite getting regularly smacked down for it.

ADDED: From Babs herself in the comments to her piece:

Barbara Kay
Barbara Kay is an opinion journalist and it is her job to present the side she finds more persuasive. Other opinion journalists are free to adduce evidence they feel is more persuasive. Let the debate go on.

Or, shorter: Babs Kay is free to make any shit up she wants without regard for normal journalistic standards of accuracy and truth.

ANOTHER ADDITION: A media release on the anti-choice book, Complications, that Babs touts in her column. And oh look who's giving it a rave review. Our old pal, serial research-fudger, and perfesser of home ec, Priscilla Coleman. Surprise, surprise.

BREAKING! NO link between breast cancer and abortion

So, inquiring minds want to know -- how much (non) evidence will be enough? Probably no amount will ever satisfy the nutters, but here's yet another study that finds NO evidence of an association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk.

In 2004 the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer evaluated the worldwide epidemiological evidence on the possible relation between breast cancer and previous spontaneous and induced abortion ad found no link. The results, drawn from 53 studies, were published in the Lancet.

A new study confirms this data, that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. The data come from a study of over 25,000 Danish women from the DIet, Cancer, and Health study. The women completed questionnaires and then were followed for an average of 12 years. This kind of study is probably the best way to look at two common and emotional charged occurrences, like abortion and breast cancer, because there is no recall bias. When something bad happens it is human nature to look back and try to assign causality, but collecting the data prospectively removes this element. The study was also well-powered to detect even a small increase, so another plus.

Link to abstract.

"It's like a breath of life ..."

NFB producer Ravida Din speaks about what moved her to develop "Pink Ribbons Inc".



It sounds amazing.

My sister died from medical complications from ovarian cancer. Seeing this documentary won't be easy, but I feel that it's important to do so, given how antichoice board members at the Susan G. Komen Foundation have declared war on women.

Surprise! The Komen Kaper Was Planned

From Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic we get some behind-the-scenes dirt on Komen's defunding of Planned Parenthood's breast exams program for poor people.

Surprise! It was a set-up. Komen recently instituted a rule that it would not fund organizations under any kind of 'investigation'. Well, some congressfundy was happy to oblige with a bogus demand for more documents from PP.

But three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new "no-investigations" rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization's new senior vice-president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I've tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.

The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization's top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen's senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public relations aspects of Komen's Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right.

And another surprise! The Komen board went against its own staff's professional advice. In other words, the move was purely ideological, thinly -- and as it turns out totally unsuccessfully -- veiled as an 'administrative' process.

Everybody wants to talk to Fetus Lobbyist Karen Handel. She's not giving interviews but she can't STFU.

We’ve also got a frame grab of a Tweet that Handel passed along: “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.”

The more I hear about Komen, the easier it is to detest it.

But this episode perfectly exemplifies the right-wing modus operandi: high-handed, ideological decisions, arrogantly imposed, and ineptly justified.

And Dave at The Galloping Beaver, directs us to TBogg who points out:

They had to know this movie was being released this week and yet they still issued their press release cutting ties to Planned Parenthood on Monday.

Hubris or stupidity?

You don’t have to choose just one, you know….

Komen: The Canadian Connection

Oh looky here.

January 12, 2010 — Leading breast cancer organizations Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation in Canada today announce a new agreement to raise funds and explore possibilities to partner in research, education, advocacy and awareness programs across borders.

The website for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation is screwy. Can't copy url, can't move around pages, can't search. Coincidence?

And the website for Run for the Cure doesn't have a search function. (At least the national sponsors, with the exception of Revlon don't look quite as evil as Komen's.)

So what is the connection between CBCF and Komen? Beyond that fuzzy 'possibilities to partner'?

The Globe is wondering too:

But it's also raising questions about what impact the Komen Foundation's decision could have in Canada. Last August, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, which organizes the Run for the Cure, announced it was teaming up with the Komen Foundation to raise money and possibly collaborate on research, education, advocacy and awareness programs on both sides of the border.

Will the new alliance lead to funding changes at Planned Parenthood in Canada as well?

The questions come only a few months after the Conservative government was in the spotlight over the decision to fund an international Planned Parenthood group, which provides abortions in developing countries around the world. Critics accused the government of succumbing to pressure from the pro-life movement.

While the government dragged its feet for months on making a decision, but it was revealed last year it will give $6 million to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, earmarked for countries where abortion is illegal.

I don't think there is any reason for this to impact the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, formerly Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. It seems to have no interest in breast cancer. Planned Parenthood Toronto doesn't offer breast screenings.

But I would like to hear from the CBCF, specifically on its relationship with anti-choice Komen Foundation.

Screw 'Run for the Cure'

I was struggling to express my disgust at the cowardice of the Komen Foundation in caving to the pressure of the Fetus Lobby, which is taking credit and celebrating.

“The continued, collective efforts of the pro-life movement have paid off,” said Bradley Mattes, Executive Director of the Life Issues Institute. “Our work to educate Komen donors to the reality that the organization has financially supported the nation’s largest chain of abortion mills has caused Komen to halt the financial hemorrhaging. Evidently, Komen had to choose between political ideology and financial viability. They made a good choice.”

I was going to write about how Planned Parenthood serves mostly poor people, how much a mammogram costs, how utterly despicable this is. . .

Then I found Amanda Marcotte's latest and she nails it. It's a witch hunt.

That's when I realized that anti-choicers do this so well because the war on reproductive health care is basically a witchhunt, and the religious fundamentalists behind it are the modern day version of medieval paranoids of old who believed that women who didn't conform to their exacting standards were consorting with Satan.

. . .

Anyone who thinks breast cancer can be neatly cordoned off from this growing circle of hate for all things women's health care is fooling themselves. That's not how witch hunts work. The fear here is not about fetuses or babies per se, but a deep-set fear of female sexuality. Already anti-choicers have scooped breast cancer under the umbrella "abortion", claiming that abortion causes breast cancer. (It doesn't.) Komen would rather side with people who see breast cancer as god's judgment on you for having an abortion rather than side with people support comprehensive health care for women. That tells you all you need to know about their organization. I'm all for picking up your sneakers and taking up running as a hobby, but recommend now you do it for you, and not for the ever-elusive cure for cancer.

Oh, and by the way, Komen doesn't play nice. It wastes a million dollars a year of donors' money chasing down little fundraisers who have the temerity to use the colour pink or use the phrase 'for the cure' in their names.

"I think it's a shame," [target Sue Prom] said. "It's not okay. People don't give their money to the Komen Foundation and they don't do their races and events so that Komen can squash any other fundraising efforts by individuals. That's not what it's about."

Image source.

The Stoooopid, It Burns

Abortion causes breast cancer -- in abortion providers.

Big Nurse Stanek gloats that two abortion doctors died of breast cancer in 2010.

Abortion does NOT cause breast cancer.

These newer studies examined large numbers of women, collected data before breast cancer was found, and gathered medical history information from medical records rather than simply from self-reports, thereby generating more reliable findings. The newer studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.

Hey, but that's just the National Cancer Institute talking. Ya know, not a Big Gloating Nurse.

Lhasa de Sela, 1972-2010

We don't tend to do obits and memorials here at DJ!.

But those who had the privilege to hear Lhasa de Sela in concert, who listened to her weave her enchanting songs that she delivered in her husky contralto with stories about her family and her sisters are bereft today. She died on January 1st at her home in Montréal.




Our colleague brebis noire is looking for an interview Lhasa gave and that was published in an Eastern Township newspaper a few years ago. I hope that she'll post it at her blogsite.



Lhasa was mysterious and wild. She loved music and her family. We will miss her.

Update: The aforementioned interview with Lhasa can be read at The black ewe - go read it now.

Think Before You Pink.

We sort of fancy the colour, here at DAMMIT JANET! - especially the shocking shade associated with Elsa Schiaparelli.

What we don't fancy is the glurge associated with the pink ribbon campaign.

And thus we are linking to an excellent post Zoom wrote at her blog Knitnut last March.

More to consider from The Canary Report:

I fully support Breast Cancer Action, an organization based in San Francisco helping to transform breast cancer from a private medical crisis to a public health emergency. And I love their Think Before You Pink campaign that “calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.” Think Before You Pink also highlights “pinkwashers”—companies that “purport to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon campaign, but manufacture products that are linked to the disease.”

Linked, as in statistically linked - but cause-and-effect has yet to be scientifically demonstrated because little funding is awarded to this type of research.

Publicly funded lies

I did some research on Pregnancy Support Services of the Upper Ottawa Valley. It does have a website, but under another name, First Steps Options Centre.

And here's the money quote:

Our staff includes trained volunteers. The information we provide is not intended as a substitute for professional counselling. We are not a medical clinic and do not offer medical advice or services. We don’t provide abortion referrals.

Fair enough. At least they are up-front about it.

But as with First Place Pregnancy Centre, the links page gives them away.

There is this gang of lying liars who, despite rigorous sciency-type studies demonstrating that 'post-abortion syndrome' does NOT exist, continue to shrieeek that it does too.

Then there's another gang of lying liars, who continue to shrieeeek that again, despite those pesky facts, abortion causes breast cancer.

This link appears to offer factual information on abortion, but (sigh) also contains the breast cancer bull-doody.

Then there's this odd link to an organization touting carrying on with a pregnancy 'with negative prenatal diagnosis'.

In short, whatever it calls itself, this gang subjects its clients to lies, fear and guilt. And now it's doing it with our money.

Admittedly, not much of our money, but this is a step down the USian road of government-funded 'faith-based initiatives' and we've got to stop it.