Canadian Cynic has a new job that forces him to drive past a certain billboard every day [And now, two troublemakers that need no introduction ...].
CC links to the website of the billboard sponsor [Stop the Cover-up]. Here's what you see if you follow the link.
This is group of people who are opposed abortion. What they're saying is that women who choose abortion are more likely to get breast cancer. Specifically ...
It is a well established fact that abortion can increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer by denying her the protective effect of both a full-term pregnancy as well as breast-feeding. In addition, the abrupt, artificial termination of a healthy pregnancy leaves a woman with an increased number of vulnerable undifferentiated (immature) breast cells which are, in turn, exposed to the massive amounts of estrogen present during early normal pregnancy. Estrogen is a known cancer causing hormone.Now, it doesn't take too much exposure to real science to recognize the problem with such claims. What they're doing is taking a little bit of truth and distorting it into something that's not the truth.
This sort of thing is very common these days. Everyone wants to bask in the glow of science even when they are doing their best to extinguish that glow. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too.
I hate to bring up the framing issue again but, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this ad is exactly the sort of thing I fear when Nisbet and Mooney start preaching. There's no question in my mind that this ad is a good example of framing (=spin). I'm not sure how we distinguish between this approach and one were we all agree to use science to support certain policies on climate change, or certain approaches to dealing with creationism.
At what point do we draw the line between truth and lies? Who is going to be the judge of when that line is crossed?
UPDATE: Abortion and Breast Cancer: There Is no Link.
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