Meanings of abortion in context: Accounts of abortion in the lives of women diagnosed with breast cancer

Abstract

Background: A breast cancer diagnosis and an abortion can each be pivotal moments in a woman's life. Research on abortion and breast cancer deals predominantly with women diagnosed during pregnancy who might be advised to have an abortion. The other-discredited but persistent-association is that abortions cause breast cancer. The aim here was to understand some of the ways in which women themselves might experience the convergence of abortion and breast cancer. Methods: Among 50 women recruited from the Australian Breast Cancer Family Study and interviewed in depth about what it meant to have a breast cancer diagnosis before the age of 41, five spontaneously told of having or contemplating a..