Recently senior government minister Eric Abetz, who is openly anti-abortion, drew a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Senator Abetz, the leader of the government in the upper house and the Employment Minister, made the comments on Channel Ten program The Project when asked if he believed the “factually incorrect” statement that abortion leads to breast cancer.

The Australian Medical Association said the comments were irresponsible.

The abortion-breast cancer theory has been rejected by Cancer Australia, the World Health Organisation, the US National Cancer Institute, Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and health authorities in Victoria and NSW.

Senator Abetz has since said in a statement: “Media reports that I have drawn or believe there is a link between abortion and breast cancer are incorrect”.

He said that he was cut off before being able to acknowledge that linking abortion with breast cancer was not the accepted medical view.

There is no scientific link between abortion and breast cancer.