Abortion's effects on women

Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), addressing the 2010 March for Life in Washington, D.C.:

Abortion isn't health care. There is nothing whatsoever benign, healing or nurturing about abortion.

Safe? Certainly not for the 52 million babies who have been dismembered or chemically poisoned or starved to death since 1973. And certainly not for women, who have been hurt physically and psychologically, and the medical data strongly suggests abortion even causes prematurity in a significant percentage of children born to women who have undergone abortion.

Safe for women? At least 102 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression and even higher incidences of suicide in women who abort. This has been covered up.

Safe for women? At least 28 studies--including three in 2009—show that an abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by some 30-40 percent or more, yet the abortion industry has largely succeeded here as well in suppressing those facts.

Nevertheless, according to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 2009 was a pivotal year in the debate about the abortion breast cancer link. Three studies were published from Turkey, China and the United States which matter-of-factly demonstrate the abortion breast cancer link as one of many breast cancer risk factors.

For example, the recent U.S. study by Jessice Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrated that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. Study co-authors included Janet Daling and Louise Brinton.

Amazingly, Brinton was a chief organizer of the 2003 National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop denying the link. Now a study she co-authored reiterates the link and reports them as consistent with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor for breast cancer.

Abortion, safe? Not for subsequent children of women who have had an abortion. At least 113 studies show a dramatic association between abortion and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies--36% after one abortion, a staggering 93% after two. In like manner, abortion causes lower birth weights in subsequent children. Prematurity and low birth weight are leading causes of disability in children.