A proper and legal medical procedure must never have serious harms
that greatly outweigh potential benefits. Compared to delivery of a
newborn, elective induced abortion surgery has the following relative
risks:

     Table 5: Four elective abortion risks (relative to delivery)

                     RR   Ref.
     Suicide:        6.5  (1)  [550% increased risk]
     Breast Cancer*: 1.3  (2)  [ 30% increased risk]
     Mortality  
      (12 month)  :  3.5  (1)  [250% increased risk]
     Future Very
      Preterm birth: 2.5  (3)  [150% increased risk]

* An induced abortion of a first pregnancy of a young childless women
  increases breast cancer by more than 30%.

In the United States and Canada, a medical doctor has a legal duty
to protect a patient's best health interests. The breast cancer
risk (a minimum of RR = 1.3) alone demands that induced abortion
as an elective procedure never be performed. Can the patient accept
such a serious risk as breast cancer by signing a consent form that
lists that risk?  "If a patient requests treatment which the doctor
considers to be inappropriate and potentially harmful, the doctor's
overriding duty to act in the patient's best interests dictates that
the treatment be withheld."4

What is quackery?
     The dictionary defines a quack as one who pretends to skill or
knowledge that he does not possess. If one pretended that an elective 
'therapeutic' procedure that increases short term mortality risk
actually dramatically reduces short term mortality risk, that qualifies
as quackery of a dangerous kind. If, in addition, the elective
procedure boosts risks of suicide, breast cancer, and future very
preterm birth, the danger of the quackery deepens. It is time for
medical doctors and researchers to summon the courage to denounce
a popular but dangerous form of quackery endangering the health of
millions of women yearly, elective induced abortion.

Informed medical consent
     To date (September 2001) no abortion clinic consent form lists
future increased risk of preterm birth. 'Incompetent' cervix is a
well known and accepted risk of induced abortion surgery.5  'Incompetent'
cervix is also an accepted risk factor for preterm birth.5  Barbara
Luke asserts that an 'incompetent cervix' multiplies the risk of a
preterm birth before 32 weeks' gestation by a factor of ten.5  Thus,
future preterm birth risk must legally be included on all abortion
clinic consent forms but is currently absent on all such forms.
Since proper informed medical consent is the right of all patients,
increased risks of prematurity, breast cancer, suicide, and short
term (12 months) mortality should be listed on all abortion clinic
consent forms, but are not.  There are other risks, beyond the scope
of this article, such as infertility and sterility, that some consent
forms omit. Ethical doctors and researchers aware of this 'medical 
negligence' (omitting serious adverse risks on consent forms) will demand
that this breach of informed medical consent be repaired.

Hippocrates
     "First, do no harm," admonished the 'Father of Medicine', 
Hippocrates.  For the good health of all women, let us adhere to this
medical ideal in the area of women's reproductive health.


Brent Rooney (Independent Medical Researcher)
Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition
3456 Dunbar St. (146)
Vancouver, Canada   V6S 2C2

stopcancer@yahoo.com