SAN DIEGO -- Attorneys for three people, including a Chula Vista woman, filed a lawsuit in San Diego Wednesday accusing Planned Parenthood of withholding information linking abortions to breast cancer.

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The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Agnes Bernardo of Chula Vista, Pamela Colip of Loma Linda, and Sandra Duffy-Hawkins of Sacramento.

According to the plaintiffs' attorney, Patrick Gillen, the complaint alleges that both the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its San Diego affiliate consistently mislead women about the safety of abortion by obscuring evidence that induced abortions are linked with breast cancer.

The suit, which asks for no monetary damages, is aimed at forcing Planned Parenthood to reveal scientific evidence linking abortions to an increased vulnerability to breast cancer, a statement from the plaintiffs' attorneys said.

An attorney for Planned Parenthood in San Diego disputed the lawsuit's allegations.

"From the information we have been given, it appears as though this is just another malicious and baseless lawsuit aimed at scaring innocent women," Planned Parenthood attorney James McElroy said.

"More than a legal strategy, this is an attempt by anti-choice extremists to manipulate the media into disseminating an inaccurate and misleading message to women," McElroy said.

The complaint contends that Planned Parenthood touts the safety of abortion both in its printed materials and on its Web sites, claiming that childbirth "carries seven times more risk" than a surgical abortive procedure.

"I believe planned parenthood had the best of intentions, but I believe they're approaching this in the wrong way" Colip said.

"When we go to vote, we have the pros and cons in front of us on the ballot and we make informed decisions. We need to ahve informed decisions about this process. It's a very big decision in a woman's life," the plaintiff said.

Gillen said the safety claims are misleading and that Planned Parenthood ignores medical research indicating that women who have abortions may face increased health risks.

"Planned Parenthood is trying to focus the attention of women only on surgical errors and other immediate complications of the procedure itself, which grossly understates the risk," Gillen said. "They dismiss the research that shows a connection between abortion and breast cancer which can increase the health risks associated with abortion by 30 percent."

The statement cited research by Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Brind said that a correlation between breast cancer and induced abortion was observed as long ago as 1957 in a study conducted in Japan.

Brind cited other studies conducted worldwide which he believes lend credence to an abortion-breast cancer connection.

"Out of 37 independently published studies, 28 show a causal connection," the statement quotes Brind as saying. "And of those, 17 provide positive associations ... suggesting a 95 percent certainty that this association is not due to chance."

Bernardo said she and her co-plaintiffs are participating in the lawsuit for personal reasons.

"I have experienced abortion, and I have been treated for a non-malignant tumor," Bernardo said. "I am very concerned about developing breast cancer."

A response to the lawsuit from Planned Parenthood was not immediately available.