The National Cancer Institute (NCI) convened more than 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk to review medical studies on the relationship between pregnancy and breast cancer risk. They concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health have together posted a site that debunks these myths.

The American Cancer Society says there is no causal connection between abortion and breast cancer.

The Mayo Clinic says there is no connection between abortion and infertility.

A study published in the British Medical Journal said that while there is a correlation between abortion and depression, the strongest indicator for post-abortion distress was if it is a preexisting condition prior to pregnancy – i.e., abortion does not create the condition.

Abortion does not increase a woman’s risk for breast cancer, depression, or infertility. The minority office of the US House Committee on Government Reform reports that these myths are being spread by people who are completely aware of their untruthfulness.

Abortion, when performed by a trained provider, is a safe procedure that does not carry with it serious health risks.

In 2000, based on clinical trials from both the United States and France, the FDA concluded that “…mifepristone used in combination with oral administration of misoprostol, is safe and effective for the termination of early pregnancy.”

According to the Association of Reproductive Health Providers, “Worldwide, millions of women have used mifepristone for safe and effective early abortion. It is approved for use in 33 countries and has been used for over 15 years in Europe”

The overall risk and complication rate from abortion in general is minimal. In fact, the earlier an abortion is performed, the safer it is for a woman. Since FDA approval six years ago, nearly 600,000 women in this country have chosen an early abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol, rather than a surgical termination.

The deaths of seven women who used the drug have been reported since FDA approval of the drug. In 2004, after three patient deaths, the FDA reaffirmed the overall safety of the medication, but modified its labeling: “The new warnings to health care providers and consumers include[d] changes to the existing black box on the product to add new information on the risk of serious bacterial infections, sepsis, and bleeding and death that may occur following any termination of pregnancy, including use of Mifeprex.”

In March 2006, after the reporting of several more patient deaths, the FDA announced it was “investigating all circumstances associated with these cases.” To date, the agency has yet to establish a definitive causal relationship between individual mortality and the use of mifepristone.

What has been identified, however, is each woman’s death resulted “from rare bacterial infections” and each used mifepristone. At issue is whether the use of the drug lowered the patient’s immunity, therefore increasing her risk of contracting the infection, whether the drug itself caused the infection, or whether the way the drug is administered caused the infections. There are at least ten other women who experienced the same deadly infections after giving birth or having a miscarriage.

Questions around how the drug has been administered have also been challenged, but the issue was not raised during a recent public review. Still, according to the FDA, going off-label and beyond the recommended regimen “has not been ruled out as a possible factor in the deaths under investigation.”

Based on the above numbers, the overall risk of death associated with medical abortion is about 1 out of 100,000 – about the same rate faced by women experiencing a miscarriage. In comparison, it is lower than the rate of death associated with Viagra, which is 5 out of 100,000 users, and lower than the 13 deaths per 100,000 women associated with childbirth.

Relevant Links:

What is Medical Abortion?

Safety of Abortion

Risk Comparison

New England Journal of Medicine

From the FDA

Fact vs. Fiction: “Abortion Pill” is not the same as Emergency Contraception

Provision of reproductive health information and services are the only proven way to meaningfully reduce abortion rates. Consider Western Europe: with a regional abortion rate approaching 10 per 1000 women—and lower in some nations—Western European women on average have half as many abortions as American women. Interestingly, levels of sexual activity between American and Western European women are similar. The difference? Access to contraception and comprehensive sexuality education are far more prevalent in Western Europe than in America.

Abortion rates in countries around the world in which abortion is illegal are the same as other nations in which abortions are legal.

While abortion remains legal, abortion rates have fallen for more than a decade in the United States overall, but there have actually been increases in abortion rates among poor women for the same reasons as above. More women have achieved access to family planning services as a function of their personal wealth, but current US public policy—including a failure to fund Title X services sufficiently—does not provide the means for prevention for women with little to no income.

Looking to our near neighbors to the south, we see that Latin American nations have some of the highest abortion rates in the world—higher than those of the US and Western Europe. Abortion is illegal in many or all cases in every Latin American country except for Cuba and in Mexico City (where it was partially legalized in 2007). In Peru, where abortion is largely illegal, abortion rates approach 2 per woman over her lifetime.

About 5,000 women die each year in Latin American countries due to unsafe abortion. And hundreds of thousands are hospitalized after seeking unsafe abortion alternatives.