Meet Brita Stream, This 20-year-old daughter of a crisis pregnancy counselor (CPC) and a CPC counselor herself was used to giving out information on the link between abortion and breast cancer, commonly known as the ABC link. Challenged by a college classmate’s charge that the ABC link was nothing more than a pro-life “scare tactic,” Brita made it her platform issue in her successful bid to become Miss Oregon 2002 in the Miss America pageant. Now, as hostess and narrator of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute’s (BCPI) new documentary video, “The ABC Link: What Every Woman Has the Right to Know,” Miss Stream takes the viewer through the heart-rending journeys of three women whose lives were forever changed. Charnette, a 32-year-old mother, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before she found out she was pregnant with her third child. Courageously resisting the apparently easy fix of abortion that some doctors suggested, she carried her child through to live birth. But still she is haunted by the memory of the abortion of her first child when she was 20 years old, and wonders if she will live to see her children grow up.
Nancy, now in her 40s, deeply regrets her three abortions. Breast cancer also brought home to Nancy the fact that the “choices” she made in college have indeed had profound consequences.
Married with children and with no recognized risk factors, Jeanette, a professional mammographer, had read about the ABC link back in the 1980s and dismissed it. She thought she was safe from breast cancer. But her one youthful indiscretion, and subsequent abortion, came back to haunt her at age 42 when she diagnosed her own breast cancer in a routine mammogram.
Dr. Angela Lanfranchi is haunted by the ABC link in another way. As a full-time practicing breast surgeon, Dr. Lanfranchi sees women like Charnette, Nancy and Jeanette in her practice every day. The most difficult task she faces is having to tell young mothers the devastating news.
As co-founder and vice-president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, Dr. Lanfranchi researches and teaches extensively about the ABC link and other risk factors for breast cancer. In the new documentary video, she explains the physiology of the breast and the biological basis of the ABC link.
The video also contains my explanation of the epidemiological evidence, Since the 1950s, many studies have documented the ABC link in populations of women around the world, including many in the United States.
The people at BCPI believe that this video will reach young women with a powerful and sobering message. Your choices have consequences. One of them, breast cancer, is not just a disease of older women. Breast cancer is more likely when women make the tragic choice of abortion instead of live birth.
Knowing about the ABC link is of lifesaving value for women who have already had an abortion. If a woman understands this heightened risk, she is more likely to be more conscientious about screening and early detection.
The ABC link video runs 26 minutes and is available from the BCPI web site at www.bcpinstitute.org or by calling the toll-free phone number (866) 622-6237 (86-NO CANCER).
