Dear Sunday Star Times

I know you don't pretend to be a quality newspaper. Your ideal front page would be a violent criminal recently paroled who broke into a politician's house and held their mistress hostage. You routinuely publish the most ridiculous nonsense and call it news.

I don't buy you regularly, in fact the only reason I bought you today was because I didn't have any cash and I was on my way to the vege market. But we go back a long way, when I was a little girl and you were still the Sunday Times, I used to read the kids page, and try the scavenger hunt every summer (I never succeeded). When I was a few years older I'd use your columnist, Frank Haden, as a litmus, test - if I agreed with two of his columns in a row, I'd obviously lost my political understanding all together.

So I reget to inform you that I will never be buying your paper again. I will do without Findlay McDonald, and your fashion spread (it's nice to know whether people are wearing really ugly skirts because they're fashion victims or because they're cooler than I am). It's partly that you ran a full-page add for Voice for Life (previously the New Zealand society for the protection of the unborn child). But it's also the add you ran, it starts:

A woman's right to know about: the medical evidence indicating their could be links between abortion and breast cancer

You are lying to your readers for money (I am well aware that this article meets your reporting standards for scientific matters - but at least then the problem stems from incopetence rather than selling the truth). I'd suggest that you try oneof these sites, but scientific literacy isn't your strong point. So try this:

There is no evidence supporting a causal link between induced abortion and subsequent development of breast cancer, according to a committee opinion issued today by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). ACOG's opinion is in agreement with the conclusion reached at the National Cancer Institute's Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Workshop, which met in March 2003.

ACOG's review of the research on a link between abortion and later development of breast cancer concluded that studies on the issue were inconsistent and difficult to interpret, mainly due to study design flaws. Some studies showed either a significant decrease in breast cancer risk after abortion or found no effect. The most recent studies from China, the United Kingdom, and the US found no effect of induced abortion on breast cancer risk.

I shouldn't be suprised that you preach reaction and misogyny and call it feminism (after all that's kind of Rosemary McLeod's speciality). But I have had my fill, and I'm not paying $2 for the pleasure.

Yours sincerley

Maia