No Evidence Abortion Causes Breast Cancer

We discovered that there is no significant causal link between abortion and breast cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, “scientific research studies have not found a cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer.” Hormone levels do seem to affect breast cancer rates; for example, breast cancer risk is increased following a full-term pregnancy. Ending a pregnancy does not increase breast cancer risk, however.

The article linked by many social media users making the claim, published on The New American, alleges that a study “finds that women who have had abortions are 180 percent more likely to develop breast cancer.” According to Media Bias, The New American is an unreliable news source. Further, the publisher that accepted the study discussed in the article, Ibima Journals, has been identified as a predatory journal – meaning that it will publish articles for a fee without conducting quality checks. 

One 2014 meta-analysis seemed to indicate that there could be a correlation between abortion and breast cancer in women who go on to have children (as opposed to women who do not), which may have added to the claim’s popularity. However, the meta-analysis was found by many to be flawed due to its use of poorly designed studies.

A more robust, recent meta-analysis of a variety of studies, including case-control, cohort, and prospective studies, indicates no correlation between abortion and breast cancer. All prospective cohort studies, which follows women who don’t have breast cancer to see if they develop it, show no link between abortion and breast cancer. According to Healthline: “One of the biggest studies on the subject was published in The New England Journal of Medicine Trusted Source in 1997. The study looked at 1.5 million women. Researchers adjusted for known breast cancer risk factors. They found no link between induced abortions and breast cancer. Other studies have come to similar conclusions:

• A 2004 analysis in The LancetTrusted Source
  reviewed data from 53 studies that included 83,000 women with breast cancer. It found neither spontaneous nor induced abortions increased breast cancer risk.
• A 2008 Archives of Internal MedicineTrusted Source
  study of more than 100,000 women also found no link between induced or spontaneous abortions and breast cancer incidence.
• A 2015 reviewTrusted Source
  didn’t find enough evidence to confirm any link.”

According to the National Women’s Health Network, women who choose to get an abortion have no scientifically-proven risk of increasing their chances of getting breast cancer.