By Staff, World News Magazine
Tianjin, China – Chinese researchers have thrown their weight into an already contentious debate over abortion and breast cancer.
In China, where breast cancer has increased sharply in recent years, a new review found that women who had an induced abortion were 44 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who didn’t.
Cancer Causes & Control published the review – a meta-analysis of 36 Chinese studies of abortion and breast cancer – online late last month. Yet most mainstream media have ignored the review, unwilling to explore a link many pro-abortion researchers have dismissed.
In doing so, America’s media may be ignoring an important body of evidence in abortion and breast cancer (sometimes called ABC) research.
“From a methodological standpoint, this looks like a very good piece of work, and it leaves me with the conclusion that there is an association between induced abortion and breast cancer,” Gene Rudd, the senior vice president of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, said in commenting on the study.
Rudd has been skeptical of some previous studies that either have or haven’t shown a cancer link to abortion. The ideological views of authors can bias their research, and women may often underreport their abortions in scientific surveys, due to shame.
“This is different. This is a positive step forward in terms of the quality of the research, the elimination of biases, the use of screening,” Rudd said.
He added that although the review showed a stronger abortion and breast cancer link than previous research, it doesn’t prove cause and effect: “It’s not the final answer.”
Patrick Carroll, a statistician in the United Kingdom who has written about the risk of breast cancer after an aboriton, said the Chinese meta-analysis provides a “fresh angle” on the subject because Chinese research doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention in the West.
Joel Brind, a researcher at Baruch College in New York City, noted earlier this month that the Chinese review showed a strong “dose effect”: A woman’s risk of breast cancer was greater if she had two or more abortions (76 percent increased risk), or three or more abortions (89 percent increased risk).
In China it is common for women to have multiple abortions. The Chinese authors of the new review, led by Yubei Huang of the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital in Tianjin, China, wrote that there was a lack of social stigma surrounding abortion in China. In theory, that should reduce the problem of women denying past abortions when filling out research questionnaires, an issue that may skew some ABC research.
Abortions are common in China because of the nation’s one-child policy. Many secular Chinese don’t view an unborn child as a person, and the communist government is careful to suppress pro-life messages that might come from Christian or Buddhist groups.
Groups Seeks Satanic Statue Next to Oklahoma Ten
Commandments
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – The New York-based Satanic Temple wants to place a shrine to Satan next to a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol.
The offer comes four years after Oklahoma’s Republican-controlled legislature approved the privately funded, biblically based monument, which was placed on the Capitol’s lawn last summer.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union believes the Ten Commandments monument is unconstitutional and has filed a lawsuit seeking its removal.
The Satanic Temple plans to submit several designs, including one with a pentagram symbol and another that is interactive for children, to the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission for consideration, said Lucien Greaves, a temple spokesman.
Oklahomans’ reactions to the offer have been less than welcoming. Both House Speaker T.W. Shannon and Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman assured jittery constituents Monday that such a plan was far from a reality. The members of a commission that would need to approve the monument also sounded skeptical.
“Anything displayed at the Capitol should be a representation of the values of Oklahomans and this nation,” said Joe Griffin, spokesman for Shannon. “The left-hand path philosophies of this organization do not align with the values of Oklahomans, nor the ideals this country or its laws are founded upon.”
Many news outlets covering the story are reporting that because Oklahoma has a Ten Commandments monument on government property, it is obligated to accept the Satanic Temple’s monument to avoid religious discrimination. That, however, may not be the case.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, Oklahoma may not be compelled to accept the Satanic Temple monument. Feb. 2009 the Court unanimously voted that Pleasant Grove City, Utah, was not required to accept a monument donated by the religious group Seven Aphorisms of Summum, even though it had already accepted a donated Ten Commandments monument.
The justices concluded that the city had a right to “portray what the government decision-makers view as appropriate for the place in question, based on aesthetics, history, and local culture.”
“It is extremely rare for the all nine justices to agree on anything,” said Jeff Mateer, general counsel of Liberty Institute. “However, they do agree that in situations such as this, the government has discretion to choose which monuments it wants to accept.”
Based in Plano, Texas, the Liberty Institute is the largest legal organization dedicated solely to defending and restoring religious liberty in America.
Supreme Court Rejects
Liberty’s Obamacare Challenge
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court has turned away Liberty University’s attempt to overturn a key part of Obamacare.
The case challenged both the employer and individual mandates on grounds of religious freedom, but it also disputed Congress’ power to compel employers to provide insurance.
The decision, made Dec. 9 without comment, leaves in place the dismissal of Liberty’s claims by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. The Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate in June 2012 under Congress’ power to tax.
The Liberty case asked the courts to consider whether Congress has the same such power over employers.
Porn Addiction Leads Teen
to Heinous Murder
GOLDEN, Col. – A Colorado judge last week sentenced an 18-year-old boy to spend the rest of his life in prison for kidnapping, sexually assaulting, murdering, and dismembering a 10-year-old girl.
How could the then-17-year-old commit such a heinous crime? It all started with pornography, he said.
Austin Sigg knew he was in trouble when he was just 12 years old. He wrote a note to his Christian therapist, saying, “I have an addiction to porn and would like it to stop,” according to court documents released after the sentencing and reviewed by The Denver Post.
But instead of getting better, his addiction grew worse as he watched increasingly violent porn. Sigg’s mother sent him to therapy in 2008 when she found child pornography on his computer. But he returned to pornography after the counseling stopped.
More Marriages Childless
LOS ANGELES – According to the Los Angeles Times, “The percentage of married women ages 40 to 44 who had no biological children and no other kids in the household, such as adopted children or stepkids, reached 6 percent in the period between 2006 and 2010.”
In 1988, the number was 4.5 percent. One reason for the decline: young women want to have children but want to delay having them. When they are ready to have them, they find they are unable to.