A CHRISTIAN charity in Hampshire is calling for women to be "told the truth about the potentially fatal effect of birth control pills on their unborn children".

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) says that researchers at Tromso University in Norway have found a 45 per cent increase in the risk of breast cancer among women who took second generation birth control pills for three years or longer.

John Smeaton, SPUC's spokesman for the region, told the Daily Echo this week: "It is quite right that women should be told the truth about how birth control pills may threaten their own health.

"However, they also need to be told that the pill can cause an early abortion.

"Many birth control pills can prevent ovulation and thus prevent conception.

"But these pills can disrupt the womb-lining too, so that if conception does occur the embryo cannot implant and is aborted instead.

"It is not only the morning-after pill that does this.

"This has been known for years by the birth control industry, but it is not generally understood by pill-users.

"Women by the million have been encouraged to take this drug without knowing how it worked.

"This is a serious infringement of informed consent and will cause distress to many.

"It is no justification to say 'So many people now use these drugs, there is no point upsetting them.'

"The sensitive and compassionate approach is to be honest and to invite women to reconsider the drugs they are taking."

The charity's views had some support from senior medics contacted by the Daily Echo.

Dr Connie Smith, director of the Clinical Effectiveness Unit at the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, part of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London, said: "Several commentators have argued that there is little evidence that current contraceptive methods act after fertilisation.

"However, extensive clinical research shows their profound effects on the endometrium."

Anne Weyman, spokesman for the Family Planning Association, added: "All hormonal contraceptives, whether being used as emergency contraception or not, have some effect on the endometrium and thus to a greater or lesser extent act to prevent implantation."

SPUC says researchers at Tromso studied some 95,000 women aged 30 to 70, and that their results have been reported in full in the International Journal of Cancer.

A spokesman for the British Medical Association said that any woman concerned about the research should talk the matter through with her GP.