Can you please link to the original studies (i.e. the scientific manuscripts?).

I currently have no position on this subject, and would like to make my judgement based on the first-hand scientific evidence.

From my initial research it seems you have cherry picked the data that supports your hypothesis. Additionally you seem to exaggerate the importance of studies/people who agree with you ("prestigious, peer-reviewed international cancer journal, "Cancer Causes and Control," - Impact factor 3.2, hardly prestigious) and attack those who disagree (NCI, "Leslie Bernstein, who had never published on this topic" - world expert in breast cancer epidemiology, with almost 200 peer reviewed papers on the topic).

Another anti-choice article dressed up as science. I notice that no other potential factors are listed in the increase in risk (also love that no article ever seems to tell us what the actual 'base' risk of breast cancer is in women. One in 100? Higher? Lower?).

Leaving aside the whys of women having abortion, I wonder if any in the anti-choice and self-proclaimed 'pro-family' (not that you ever see them actually supporting families) have ever considered the children who are born because of abortion; the teenaged girl or adult woman who terminates a pregnancy and goes on to be happily married and have three children, events unlikely if she had been forced to bear and raise a child she didn't want.

Childless women (such as nuns) have always had a higher risk of breast cancer. This has nothing to do with abortion. Every time a women has a full term pregnancy she reduces her lifetime frequency of exposure to high levels of estrogen. The fact is that every time a woman has a full term pregnancy , she has at least 9 mouths without experiencing a menstrual cycle.
Every time she has a menstrual cycle she experiences a peek surge in levels of the hormone estrogen . Estrogen is a powerful growth promoter i.e it raises the chance of cancer:uncontrolled cell division, growth, starting in the first place.

It's a shame that debates on scientific matters like this are dominated by people influenced by their own strong pro-life or feminist views about abortion. The author has made her point based on evidence she is aware of. Lets have an evidence-based response please from both camps. I don't claim expertise on this matter so I have no opinion on the science.

We know that women having a litter of kids starting at a young age seem to benefit from a reduced risk of breast cancer, yet we don't recommend large families as part of our public health policies. If the claimed link between abortion and increased risk of breast cancer is proven, I doubt that it will have any impact on the availability of abortion, though arguably it may have an impact at the margin on the numbers of abortions carried out.

In response to those who accuse Babette of pro-life bias in writing about the abortion-breast cancer link, why is it left to pro-lifers to highlight the protective factors on which there is no scientific dispute? For example:

* The earlier a woman has a full-term pregnancy, the lower her risk of breast cancer. This is a very good reason why no female under 30 years of age should have an induced abortion.

* The more full-term pregnancies a woman has, the lower her risk of breast cancer. Another reason not to have induced abortions.

* The longer a woman breastfeeds her babies, the lower her risk of breast cancer. It is not possible to breastfeed an aborted fetus, and some women who have an abortion will never have another child.

There are more than 57 studies supporting the abortion-breast cancer
link. These can be viewed at www.bcpinstitute.org and
www.abortion.breastcancer.com

Gadfly, how about studies printed in reputable, peer-reviewed publications? The links you have provided (only one of which works) are to anti-choice organisations. Critical thinking requires that information supporting their claims that has not been put through a rigorous scientific peer-review system be treated as unsubstantiated and lacking in validity.