Ohio attorney wants to end breast cancer
Cincinnati attorney Michele Young knows what it’s like to treat each day like it’s her last. Years ago, she was told her days were numbered after a breast cancer diagnosis caught six years late.
Since then, she’s worked every moment to make sure no other woman is ever put in that same position.
Young is Ohio’s 2024 USA TODAY Woman of the Year honoree.
In 2018, Young was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. The mother of five was told her cancer had likely been around since 2012 but went undetected on routine mammograms due to her dense breast tissue (a kind of breast tissue 40% of women have). At the time, in Ohio, many screenings beyond mammograms weren’t covered by insurance, making it difficult for women like Young to catch breast cancer in its early stages. She was given 1 in 100 odds of survival.
But Young is no stranger to defying the odds. She was part of the legal team that secured a $3 million settlement for the family of Gabriel Taye, an 8-year-old Cincinnati Public Schools student who killed himself after being bullied at school. She also was part of the pro bono effort to free Tyra Patterson after she spent 23 years in prison for a crime she did not commit.
Right after her diagnosis, Young simply laid out her strategy to her doctors at the UC Health Breast Cancer Center.
“We’ll save my life, and we’ll change the law (on breast cancer screenings),” Young said on The Enquirer’s “That’s So Cincinnati” podcast in October 2022.
She did just that. She beat her cancer and entered remission in 2020.
In 2022, she helped change Ohio law as a major force behind passage of House Bill 371, which requires insurance companies to expand access to advanced breast cancer screenings for women with dense breasts and other risk factors.
Now, she’s working toward similar legislation on the federal level. She’s teamed up with, in her words, “the Oppenheimers of breast cancer” to get politicians’ attention, including breast cancer survivors Katie Couric and NBC’s Kristen Dahlgren, and Dr. Nora Disis, one of the leading minds behind a breast cancer vaccine.
They’ve launched the Pink Eraser Project, with their sights set on putting an end to breast cancer, once and for all.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Question: Who paved the way for you?
Answer: My family paved the way for me. My parents are the children of Jewish immigrants who survived the Holocaust. And I watched my parents’ idealism. My father taught in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and my mother taught immigrants in the Forest Hills neighborhood in Queens. And I watched as they tried to make a life for us, make a life for them against many obstacles that they couldn’t overcome. They inspired me to lift obstacles for myself and others so we could all have the promise of the American dream, which captivated my family. What is your definition of courage? I think there are many forms of courage. One is to bear hardship and evil, bigotry and cruelty and have the courage to say, “I can stand up to that and still be noble and kind and be the person I want to be.” The second involves having the personal courage to ask tough questions of yourself. And ask, “Am I part of the problem and how do I fix myself so I become part of the solution?” The third kind, which I think I have an abundance of, is the courage to take on the world and say, “This is wrong. Do to me what you like. I’m in, I’m staying the course, and I’m not leaving until justice is done.”
Is there a guiding principle or mantra you tell yourself?
There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Each one is a chance to transform the world.
What advice would you give your younger self ?
It’s not over ’til it’s over. The darkest time of your life may be the beginning of a whole new chance to do good. And, kindness and love is everything. Without it, nothing is right.