State of Texas Health Dept. Now Spreading Falsehoods About Cancer to Scare Women Out of Having Abortions

Comes as Dangerous Anti-Abortion Bill Moves Through Ohio Legislature

The latest version of the State of Texas’s abortion information booklet was released this week, and it contains false information based on debunked myths.

“A Woman’s Right to Know“ includes much of the same misinformation as previous versions, most disturbingly the widespread myth that having an abortion increases risk of breast cancer.

“Research indicates that having an abortion will not provide you this increased protection against breast cancer,” the pamphlet states.

There is no evidence that abortion causes breast cancer, despite the pamphlet’s suggestion. A Breitbart article made this claim last year, citing a press release from the American College of Pediatricians, which is a small political group whose name is designed to confuse people into thinking it is the well-respected American Academy of Pediatrics, a professional organization. Also, pediatricians do not typically study abortion.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the National Cancer Institute both find the link between breast cancer and abortion to be non-existent.

The American Cancer Society states point-blank, “scientific research studies have not found a cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer.”

Texas’s booklet states, “No one can force you to have an abortion, not even your parents or the father of your baby.” But it does not state, “No one can force you to not get an abortion, not even your parents or the father of your baby.” 

It also states there are “medical risks of having an abortion,” while not noting there are medical risks during pregnancy and during childbirth.

The pamphlet also says, “Newborn babies are able to feel pain,” using that as the excuse to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. Science shows unborn babies do not feel pain until 24 weeks.

Clinics in Texas are required by law to give this pamphlet to their patients, so this lie is being spread to any woman seeking an abortion in Texas. The National Right to Life Committee claims that these laws are in place in 22 states.

Some providers around the country have attempted to undermine the pamphlets by explaining the science to their patients, as Dr. Willie Parker demonstrated in the documentary “Trapped.”

The pamphlet lists death, cramping, vaginal bleeding, nausea, depression, and infertility as risks of having an abortion. All of these are risks of pregnancy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already forced Texas to rescind some of its most extreme anti-abortion legislation, including a law which required clinics to operate like surgical centers, with doctors requiring admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Ohio, one of the other states that requires similar information be given to patients, also just passed anti-abortion legislation through the Senate in the form of a “heartbeat bill”, which limits abortion access to the first few weeks of a pregnancy, within a time that many women don’t even realize that they’re pregnant. The bill still has to pass through the House and be signed by Governor John Kasich before it becomes law.

The bill has been proposed multiple times and opponents say that if it passes it will be ruled unconstitutional.