Anti-abortion activists have been trying to scare women away from abortions by arguing that the procedure raises the risk of breast cancer. But now, in the largest and most comprehensive study to date, Danish researchers find no evidence for such a link.

Scientists at Denmark's Statens Serum Institut and the National Board of Health undertook the massive job of examining the records of every Danish woman born between April, 1935, and March, 1978. Out of a total of 1.5 million women, the researchers found 280,965 who had undergone an abortion, and 10,246 who were stricken with breast cancer. Then the scientists asked: Does having an abortion increase the chances of getting cancer? The answer was a resounding no. "Induced abortions have no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer," the authors conclude in the January 9, 1997, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

An accompanying editorial in the same journal by Patricia Hartge of the U.S. National Cancer Institute adds: "In short, a woman need not worry about the risk of breast cancer when facing the difficult decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy."

By John Carey in Washington