What's the point of collecting money to fight breast cancer only to hand it over to people causing breast cancer?

Could it be left-wing ideology?

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month drew to a close Sunday, a major breast cancer-fighting foundation came under fire for giving money to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. Growing scientific evidence points to a strong correlation between abortion and breast cancer.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is "the largest recipient of nonprofit funds going toward breast cancer research," according to Bradley Mattes, executive director of the Life Issues Institute.

Mattes told WND the Komen Foundation contributed $731,000 to Planned Parenthood during fiscal year 2009, and $3 million over the past five years.

"They deny there's a link between abortion and breast cancer," Mattes told WND. "Even if the media came down and hit them in the head, I don't believe that they'd change their mind because they believe abortion is a positive."

Mattes said people who want to fight breast cancer should donate to other organizations.

"Komen must be transparent and publicly apologize for using donations to fund Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. Abortion is the single most significant risk factor for breast cancer. While Komen seeks a cure for breast cancer, it funds abortion, which increases the risk of breast cancer. This duplicity must stop. Komen must cease abortion funding and remain true to its mission," Mathew D. Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, stated in a press release.

In a table labeled "Breast Cancer Risk Factors," the Komen website asserts that abortion poses "No increase or decrease in risk." Elsewhere on the website, Komen states that linking abortion to breast cancer is "disinformation."

"We agree with the bulk of scientific evidence – from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard, a rigorous study in Denmark and from Oxford University – that there is no conclusive link between breast cancer and induced abortion or miscarriage," wrote Komen's chief scientific adviser, Eric Winer, M.D., last year.

The evidence that abortion contributes to breast cancer appears, however, to be mounting. In June, the London Daily Mail reported on a recent study in Sri Lanka finding that abortion "triples" the risk of breast cancer. The Daily Mail reported that three other studies, in China, Turkey, and the U.S., came to "similar conclusions" in the past 14 months.

According to the British paper, Louise Brinton, a senior researcher with the U.S. National Cancer Institute who did not accept the link, reversed her position earlier this year to say she was now convinced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by about 40 percent.

Another organization fighting abortion and breast cancer, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, quotes a study conducted by a second National Cancer Institute-commissioned scientist, Janet Daling, whom it describes as "an abortion supporter":

"[A]mong women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50% higher than among other women."

Abortion is the "best predictor of breast cancer" according to a 2007 study, "The Breast Cancer Epidemic: Modeling and Forecasts Based on Abortion and Other Risk Factors," by Patrick S. Carroll of the London-based research institute PAPRI and published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

According to Mattes, the Komen Institute is fully aware of the new developments in the study of breast cancer causes but will continue to support Planned Parenthood in any case, because the organization is "steeped" in pro-abortion philosophy.

"The details have been shared repeatedly with the organization," said Mattes. "This is not an issue of them being uninformed."

Mattes told WND that Nancy Brinker, the founder of Komen, has been involved with Planned Parenthood for many years.

A Komen spokesman confirmed to WND that Brinker "at one time many years ago, serve briefly on the board of directors for the North Texas chapter of Planned Parenthood."

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer agrees with Mattes that the problem is ideological.

"One of the difficulties with anti-cancer organizations is that radical feminists took up the breast cancer cause in the 1980's. They saw this as a means of championing women's rights, so it must have come as a surprise to them when they learned that their dominant concern – abortion – caused breast cancer. Once it became apparent that they had a conflict between abortion ideology and protecting women's health, abortion won hands down!"

Mattes noted that for years, major research institutes have denied any link between abortion and breast cancer because the issue has been "politicized."

"It's not politically correct to acknowledge that," said Matthes. "It took many years for the link between smoking and lung cancer to be acknowledged."

On its website, the Komen Institute emphasizes that all of its donations to Planned Parenthood go exclusively to support programs for breast cancer screening.

"That's a ridiculous argument," responded Mattes. "If you gave our organization money but you didn't want it going to support our television program, we could apply it to lights and rent, and use the rent money for the television program. There's no way to separate the two. If you give money to Planned Parenthood, you're supporting the largest string of abortion mills in the U.S."

www.wnd.com/

Nov.1, 2010