"I fell to my knees in a Catholic Church," she said, "and begged God and begged a priest to please give me the strength and the courage so that I could tell my husband that I had an abortion and that I could tell the world that I had an abortion and that I now have breast cancer -- because I do not want what happened to me to happen to someone else."
She went home to tell her husband. He gently stopped her and asked if she had had an abortion. "I said, 'Yes,' " she said, "and he sat down beside me on the bed and he put his arm around me and said, 'Honey, we both lost a child.' "
Charnette stepped unflinchingly into one of the most controversial debates in medicine: Does induced abortion increase the risk of breast cancer?
Numerous case studies indicate it does. In 1996, a group of researchers led by Prof. Joel Brind of the City University of New York published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health a comprehensive analysis of all studies of a potential link. There was a 30 percent overall increased risk of breast cancer, they concluded, among women who had any induced abortions.
Other researchers contest the link. They argue that women who haven't had breast cancer are less likely to reveal past abortions to researchers than women who have had breast cancer.
Given that one in every eight American women now faces the prospect of breast cancer, our all-Republican federal government has a duty to settle this issue -- stat -- with honest science. They should listen to Charnette, whose story will be available on video from the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute (BCPInstitute.org).
Gabrielle is now 4, and son Christian is 1. But they aren't the only children in Charnette's heart. "I would feel greatly accomplished," she says, "if everyone in this world will remember me as a mother of three beautiful children -- because that is who I am."