October is Breast Cancer Awareness month (and the month of the Rosary, and Respect Life month....) and campaigns to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer are everywhere. This MercatorNet article raises the question: why doesn't breast cancer awareness month raise awareness about all the risk factors for breast cancer...specifically the highly elevated risk for women who have used the contraceptive pill or had an abortion?
"The pink awareness campaign is packaged, quite profitably, as an expression of genuine concern about women’s health. So surely it is reasonable to expect that such concern be matched by an accurate presentation of all the known risk factors, and by an insistence upon the very best corresponding prevention recommendations, right? After all, early detection measures such as screening are not nearly the same thing as solid prevention. Indefensibly, however, most awareness efforts fail to feature some factors known to reduce breast cancer risk: having children, avoiding induced abortions, and refraining from oral contraceptives (OC). True, there is no guaranteed way for anyone to dodge or develop breast cancer, but that does not mean there are not risk factors. Women today are delaying childbirth as never before, and having fewer children. Younger women are using OC for longer periods of time. And well over a fifth of all pregnancies in America end in abortion – hardly the rarity its “safe, legal and rare” advocates say it should be. If you suspect that these reproductive risk factors might have something to do with the 40 percent increase in the incidence of breast cancer over the last 30 years, you have spotted the elephant in the room."
Breast cancer has been one of the most prominent issues in women's health for years now; it is time to raise awareness of how abortions and oral contraceptives seriously harm women's health by elevating the risk for breast cancer. Read the full article here.