Talk:American Government Lecture Seven

"Nearly ever single study analyzing abortion has shown it to cause breast cancer"

Hi, I see someone has reverted my removal of this sentence, so I will explain.

I'm not here to argue whether or not abortion causes an increased risk of breast cancer, or whether abortion and breast cancer are correlated. Rather, I am taking issue with the statement "nearly ever single study analyzing abortion has shown it to cause breast cancer." I provided a link to Wikipedia's article, which contains a bibliography with several studies analyzing abortion and breast cancer and finding no link between abortion and breast cancer. Such a list disproves the statement that "nearly ever single study analyzing abortion has shown it to cause breast cancer," even if there is, in fact, a link between abortion and breast cancer (which I'm not about to debate). I would certainly hope that false statements are corrected or removed from educational materials, and that's why I removed the statement this morning. Please let me know what you want to have done with this statement. Thanks, GregG 18:55, 24 October 2012 (EDT)

Greg, the studies are overwhelming that abortion causes breast cancer, and the science for why is well understood. Indeed, logic itself compels the same conclusion as no one disputes that childbirth lowers breast cancer risk.

Of course Wikipedia can be expected to deny basic truths like this.--Andy Schlafly 19:24, 24 October 2012 (EDT)

We can go on and on about the evidence, but the point is that the statement "nearly ever single study analyzing abortion has shown it to cause breast cancer" can be proven false by providing a list of studies of abortion and breast cancer that indicate no link. Such a list may include (taken from searching Google scholar for citations):

1. Breast cancer and abortion: collaborative reanalysis of data from 53 epidemiological studies, including 83 000 women with breast cancer from 16 countries. The Lancet 363(9414):1007-1016 (2004) doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)15835-2 ("Pregnancies that end as a spontaneous or induced abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.")
2. G.K. Reeves et al. Breast cancer risk in relation to abortion: Results from the EPIC study. International Journal of Cancer 119(7):1741-45 (2006) ("Overall, the findings provide further unbiased evidence of the lack of an adverse effect of induced abortion on breast cancer risk.")
3. K.D. Henderson et al. Incomplete pregnancy is not associated with breast cancer risk: the California Teachers Study. Contraception 77(6):391-96 (2008). ("These results provide strong evidence that there is no relationship between incomplete pregnancy and breast cancer risk.")
4. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15095312 T.L. Lash and A.K. Fink. Null association between pregnancy termination and breast cancer in a registry-based study of parous women. International Journal of Cancer 110(3):443-8 (2004).

I will certainly admit that this is an active area of research and so we don't really know what the correlation is between abortion and breast cancer, but there do exist studies showing no link. This means that the statement "nearly ever single study analyzing abortion has shown it to cause breast cancer" is simply not true. GregG 19:41, 24 October 2012 (EDT)

"which States must Romney win in order to win the election"

Dear Mr. Schlafly,

I'm not sure whether this was meant to be a trick question (in which case this post will probably spoil the answer), but wouldn't the correct answer to the question as written be "none of them", because Romney can win with any 46 states? If that's not the intended correct answer, perhaps it might be good to reword the question. GregG 21:07, 26 October 2012 (EDT)

The question is based on the reality that "Obama will almost certainly win [at least] 237 electoral votes," as discussed in the lecture. But I'll add that to the question so there is no misunderstanding. Thanks for mentioning this.--Andy Schlafly 21:55, 26 October 2012 (EDT)