Media Trashes Trump HHS Nominee Charmaine Yoest for Noting Abortion is Linked to Breast Cancer

National   |   Maureen Collins   |   May 26, 2017   |   3:36PM   |   Washington, DC

Charmaine Yoest, the former president of Americans United for Life and President Donald Trump’s nominee for assistant secretary of public affairs for Department of Health and Human Services, holds a perfectly reasonable position about the link between abortion and breast cancer. So, of course, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several other left-leaning outlets have run hit pieces on her this week.

A breast cancer survivor herself, Yoest has argued (as many others have) that having an abortion may increase a woman’s chances of breast cancer.

But writers at the NYT and the Post scoff at this claim as unscientific, saying it’s based on an allegedly outdated study from 1996, in which researchers combined all the available studies and concluded that abortion upped a woman’s chances of breast cancer by as much as 30 percent.

Michelle Ye Hee Lee from the Washington Post thinks it is ridiculous to trust this statistic. Under the ominous subtitle “The Facts,”  Ye Hee Lee writes that, “Subsequent, methodologically sound studies consistently showed no association between induced abortion…and increased breast cancer risks.” She does not mention, of course, that of the 72 studies done on the topic, 21 have concluded that there is a significant link between abortion and breast cancer.

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Then there is Emily Bazelon at the New York Times, who cannot fathom that Yoest thinks abortion hurts women. Bazelon dismisses the abortion and breast cancer link because it has been “decisively” rejected by organizations such as the American Cancer Society “based on an abundance of research.”

However, Bazelon does not comment on the “abundance” of studies that support Yoest’s claim.

Pro-abortion liberals claim to be on the side of science, and that anyone who disagrees — regardless of whether they are actual scientists — are wrong. But this narrative works the opposite way too: any study must conclude that abortion is 100 percent safe and right or it is not scientific.

It makes sense that the progressive website Slate was also aghast at Yoest’s claim that “Scientists are under the control of the abortion lobby.” Yet, Slate sees no irony their own dismissal of the studies Yoest and other pro-lifers cite as a furtherance of their own, pro-abortion agenda.

While the link between abortion and breast cancer is still up for debate, there are many scientific studies to support Charmaine Yoest’s claim. It is pretty unscientific to call a certain question “decided” while there is clearly still disagreement in the medical community — a disagreement that could be putting millions of women at risk.

LifeNews Note: Maureen Collins writes for the Media Research Center.