AB C SETTLEMENT

Landmark court case / First ever Abortion-Breast Cancer settlement in Australia

The world's first known abortion-breast cancer settlement has taken place in Australia. News of this settlement comes to light as Australian legislators in Tasmania voted in favor of expanding access to abortion for women. The plaintiff's attorney in the lawsuit, Charles Francis, Queen's Counsel, had cautioned the parliamentarians about the possibility of increased litigation against abortion providers which might occur as a result of expanding abortion rights.

"In Victoria, civil claims for negligence from women suing their abortionists are becoming much more common. Doctors haven't warned them and about 10% have serious psychological repercussions," said Francis.

The plaintiff, who cannot be publicly identified, due to a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement, alleged her physician had not informed her of the research connecting abortion with an elevated breast cancer risk.

The plaintiff proved her physician failed to secure informed consent, prior to her abortion, which led to this landmark decision. Since 1957, 28 of 37 studies have concluded abortion increases the risk of breast cancer in women.

Francis commented on the settlement and also discussed additional cases in which plaintiffs alleged they suffered emotionally as a result of their abortions. Francis stated the plaintiffs in the emotional distress cases had obtained "quite large, out of court settlements."  "In Australia, the case of Rogers v. Whitaker in the High Court decided that before any operation a doctor has a duty to warn the patient of any material risks," Francis said. "Abortionists give the women concerned little or no information about the many risks of an abortion. In 1996, two Australian women commenced legal actions because their abortionists gave them no warning that there might be adverse psychiatric consequences. Both these cases were eventually settled for undisclosed amounts."

"Since 1998, cases have commenced which have also claimed the additional failure to warn of an increased risk of breast cancer caused by abortion," continued Francis. "Recently, one of those cases was settled for an undisclosed amount. This is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world. A confidentiality clause, which was part of the settlement, prevents

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, based in Palos Heights, Illinois, said the settlement of the abortion-breast cancer case represented an admission by abortion providers and their medical experts that abortion causes breast cancer. "We're delighted with the settlement of an abortion-breast cancer case. The abortion industry and its medical experts know that it will be far more challenging for them to lie to women about the abortion-breast cancer research when they are called upon to testify under oath." Malec added, "Women and their families are the real victims of this scientific misconduct. Tragically, abortion data from the only Australian abortion-breast cancer study was concealed from Australian women for seven years. Scientists could have spared women a great deal of suffering, if they had only set aside their abortion ideology and published their abortion data."

The Australian study, authored by Thomas E. Rohan et al and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1988, was conducted on women from Adelaide, Australia. Rohan examined reproductive and dietary risk factors for the disease. Researchers determined Australian women who had abortions increased their risks for breast cancer by 160%. As the study's most significant and only statistically significant risk factor, abortion was unparalleled among all of the variables examined. The elevated risk resulting from induced abortion far and away exceeded that of family history for the disease and even childlessness, according to the research.

Joel Brind, Ph.D., author of a 1996 review and meta-analysis of the abortion-breast cancer studies and president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute located in Poughkeepsie, New York, expressed a sense of horror that researchers would selectively omit data for the most significant risk factor. At a talk given in 1999 in Malvern, Australia, Brind said, "This is not what you see in scientific research, ever. I've never seen it before, where the most significant finding in a study is specifically left out of a research paper." He concluded, "We hypothesize that there is more of it."

Rohan's abortion data had been buried in a file cabinet, until the publication of a small meta-analysis by French researchers, Nadine Andrieu et al, in the British Journal of Cancer. Andrieu not only reported previously unpublished data, but also found a synergistic effect between induced abortion and a family's history of breast cancer.