Women must know the truth

Following publication of new research into the links between abortion and breast cancer, UK anti-abortion agencies are demanding that women should be told about the serious health risks before they terminate their pregnancies.

Breast cancer is now the commonest form of cancer in the UK. Around 30,000* women are diagnosed with the disease in England and Wales each year. One in nine women will develop breast cancer at some time in their lives.

The cause of this major rise in post-menopausal breast cancer is currently unknown, and although nationwide breast-screening programmes (introduced 1988/9) caused a surge of new cases in the early 1990s, this cannot account for the resumption of an upward trend in disease rates, after an initial peak, in women aged 45-59 in the mid-90s.