Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
May 22, 2002
TV ad highlights research on possible abortion-breast cancer link
Studies show link, but critics blame cancer increase on other factors
By Jennifer C. Vergara
LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A TV ad with the message that abortion could increase a woman's risk for breast cancer by at least 50 percent has started to air in California as part of a statewide pro-life ad campaign.
"Nobody told me that 40 years of research and 28 medical studies have shown a significant link between abortion and breast cancer," the ad says.
"People don't know anything about this, and more so in California," Dana Serrano, executive director of the Women's Resource Network-California, told The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
The network has begun airing the ad in San Diego, and hopes to have it shown in Los Angeles and other California cities by September. The group is working to raise $7 million to carry out the ad campaign.
Licia Nicassio, director of the Los Angeles archdiocesan Respect Life office, said that "within the general public, there is total ignorance (of the link between between abortion and breast cancer). Or if not ignorance, denial that there is a connection between early-term abortion and breast cancer later in life."
In the ad, a volleyball coach for high school girls goes through the practice routine with her students as, through a voice-over, she talks about how she had an abortion at 17 and now has breast cancer.
Tom Peterson, founder and president of VirtueMedia Inc., the nonprofit corporation that produced the ad, told The Tidings: "My personal hope is that because of this, women who may have had an abortion ... don't feel fearful but rather more educated and would choose to get breast exams and screenings a little earlier in life because they may be in the high-risk category."
Because VirtueMedia Inc. relies on donations for funding, Peterson said, production on the ad was made possible because most of the crew and professional talents "donated time and equipment for the cause"; this included the four doctors who served as consultants.
The ad can be aired as a public service announcement, but Nicassio said that is not as effective as buying the time slot because "it's too easy for television programmers to say, `No, we're not going to use them. After all, they're free.'"
But media buys do not come cheap, especially in Los Angeles, which ranks as the No. 2 U.S. media market because it covers 2.8 million people. Airing the ads in the Los Angeles area will take about 40 percent of the Women's Resource Network's statewide media budget.
Serrano and other network leaders were hoping local Catholic parishes would help the group meet their costs with fund-raisers.
Sally Rosiek, the network's Southern California regional director, said she has approached a few parish Respect Life committees to show the ad and talk "about the importance of the cooperation of the churches to turn Californians from (believing in) a culture of death to a culture of life."
Critics of studies that show a link between abortion and breast cancer say many factors could increase the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, including the fact that women are delaying childbirth and having fewer babies in the 30 years since abortion on demand was legalized.
But Joel Brind, a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of New York, has researched the connection for several years. He has argued that the increased risk of breast cancer for women who have abortions early in their pregnancy is related to terminating the pregnancy just as a woman's body is going through the rapid increase in estrogen and progesterone that occurs during the first trimester.
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