Anti-abortion activist Charmaine Yoest, whom President Donald Trump on Friday named assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, has gone on record as saying she believes that having an abortion increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer.
From 2008 to 2016, Yoest, herself a breast cancer surivor, served as president and CEO of an anti-abortion organization that makes the same claim, in all caps, on its website. “Abortion is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer,” according to Americans United for Life (AUL), an Arlington, Va.-based group that describes itself as the “legal architect of the pro-life movement.”
