Having fewer menstrual cycles does decrease a woman's chance of getting breast cancer. Pregnancy reduces the number of menstruations cycles, but so does early menopause, or using Seasonale (or taking birth control pills in such a way that one only has a period four times a year). I'd also like to see the study on which you base your statement that having a kid before thirty somehow keeps one fertile.

The UCSC article recommends hormone supplements rather than pregnancy. The TAMU article is about alpha-fetoprotein, and says that its effect is most pronounced in women who become pregnant before 20. That article says that if their theory on the protein are correct it may, in the future, be administered to women to reduce breast cancer rates. The Discovery article explicitly states that these are all just hypotheses; it also says that both pregnancies and breastfeeding (which delays resumption of menstruation) seem to produce the protective effect.

The first and second articles you cited both support what I said, which is that Seasonale or a similar birth control pill regimen will have the same effect as pregnancy. The second article talks about a protein which is not currently commercially available, but if its benefits are proven I would guess that it will become as common as iron and calcium supplements.

You know what's sick? That computer program who didn't want the baby is someday going to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. If it had been a boy, that kid would have a future of this guy cheering the loudest at his high school football games. That's one of the biggest problems I have with the idea of "abortion for men". The guy will "terminate" his responsibilities to the child in that 30 or 60 day window that so many people seem to be advocating. Then he'll drop in during the kid's childhood, possibly screwing up the child's relationship with an adoptive or step-father, making promises he won't keep, getting the child's hopes up. He'll occasionally hand the mother some money (which he'll immediately remember as being ten times as much as it actually was), for which he'll expect her to be grateful.

Then, when the child is in his/her twenties and the hard work is done, he'll become Mr. Sensitive. He'll talk about how he regrets not being a better father, but wants to make it all up now. He'll have had time to advance his career and invest the money he didn't spend on child support. He'll suddenly become generous, take the kid out for fancy dinners, hand over a hundred dollar bill at the end of each visit, give the kid a new car as a college graduation present, help out with the security deposit on an apartment or the downpayment for a house etc. Society will pressure the mother and the grown child to forgive and forget. The kid might even feel grateful and proud that the father seems to have come around. So, again, if the computer programmer wins his case, expect that he'll walk his "aborted" daughter down the aisle at her wedding, even if she has a wonderful stepfather on her other arm.

Come on, we've all seen this happen to friends whose parents divorced and whose deadbeat dad became sensitive-Santa when kid grew up. And far too many of us have known women who got pregnant-and-dumped but didn't sue for child support because "he's so good with the baby, I wouldn't want to ruin that, and he gives me money sometimes when he can." Abortion for women is irreversible. "Abortion for me" will be a temporary financial fiction.

Last lines of my post should have been:

Abortion for women is irreversible. "Abortion for men" will be a temporary financial fiction.

Someone asked where all the feminists are on this issue. Have a look at this quote from the story, "[i]t was a way to take charge of my own sexuality." If a feminist dares to make a comment on this surgery, s/he'll be told that this is about choice, about reclaiming one's sexuality, and so on and so forth. After a few discussions like that, one learns to just roll one's eyes at this nonsense. This story wasn't about helpless teenage girls being mutilated, it's about grown women. Why wade into the fray to attempt to help a group of people who certainly won't thank you for it?

The original letter, and several of the responses here, have clearly stated that it is the BROTHER (who went along with the disowning) and his wife who are doing the elder care. THE BROTHER IS TAKING CARE OF THE PARENTS, NOT THE SISTER.

I think the LW should take the advice given several pages back and write a chatty letter about herself and her partner. Add maybe one line like “get well soon” at the end, but otherwise make it all about yourself and your partner. Or, use Rosalind Lord’s letter from the post above. See if they really care about you or if they figure that since you don’t have a traditional faaaaamily that you can be their unpaid and unappreciated nursemaid until they die (the typical fate of “spinster” daughters). The LW should also tell the good sister that she’s sending it, so that the father will know that it was sent.