"I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they've gone through the surgery, and they've compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill," Swanson explains.
"And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies."
The above quoted comes from Kevin Swanson. No, not Joe and Bonnie's kid, although this Kevin's done a great job turning himself into a cartoonish caricature. This Kevin is a fundamentalist pastor with a radio show of his very own. He's also a guy who genuinely believes (or at least wants people to believe) that birth control not only ruthlessly murders forming fetuses on contact, but it also turns the uterine wall into a vertical graveyard of little tiny fetuses, at which point they're eventually discarded and flushed away in a genocidal red tide, meeting an ignoble end on a tampon or a maxi-pad.
No, Kevin, birth control does not work that way. Here, let me help you (and anyone else clueless about birth control) understand how it all goes down, courtesy of Columbia University:
Birth control pills prevent pregnancy through several mechanisms, mainly by stopping ovulation. If no egg is released, there is nothing to be fertilized by sperm, and the woman cannot get pregnant. Most birth control pills contain synthetic forms of two female hormones: estrogen and progestin. These synthetic hormones stabilize a woman's natural hormone levels, and prevent estrogen from peaking mid-cycle. Without the estrogen bump, the pituitary gland does not release other hormones that normally cause the ovaries to release mature eggs.
Specifically, synthetic estrogen in the pill works to:
Meanwhile, synthetic progestin works to:
- Stop the pituitary gland from producing follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) in order to prevent ovulation.
- Support the uterine lining (endometrium) to prevent breakthrough bleeding mid-cycle.
- Stop the pituitary gland from producing LH in order to prevent egg release.
- Make the uterine lining inhospitable to a fertilized egg.
- Partially limit the sperm's ability to fertilize the egg.
- Thicken the cervical mucus to hinder sperm movement (although this effect may not be key to preventing pregnancy).
Seems like poor Kevin's confusing birth control with more controversial abortifacients like Mifepristone, better known under the catchier name "RU 486." Then again, lumping the two together works well for drawing more outrage from concerned anti-abortion groups, as well as intentionally muddying the waters for everyone else.
At any rate, you have to wonder where our friend Kevin came up with his home-grown theory on how birth control strangles the Gift of Life™ and tacks it on the wall like a Cenobite's bulletin board posting. The above quote indicates research was involved, and I'd like to know who did that research and what it entailed. I have a feeling Kevin simply reached back to the idea of preformation, where ready-made modules of humanity are fired off in the form of sperm into the female uterus, where the one (or more) chosen sperm will eventually grow into a healthy human being or wind up the uterine equivalent of a deer antler on a sportsman's wall.
Oddly enough, nothing's said about the wanton murder that male masturbation causes, especially if you keep in mind the whole "preformation" idea. Trillions upon trillions of sperm are left to die a cottony death on the napkins, paper towels, socks and bedsheets of young and adult American men, yet nothing's ever said about this genocide of epic proportions. As one unlucky spermatozoa croaked just before expiring on a hotel mattress, "Kevin Swanson don't care about sperm people."
There's also this thing about Kevin homeschooling himself. Not to knock the homeschool movement, but it's the perfect way for religious fundamentalists, the mentally imbalanced and the overly paranoid to short-circuit and bypass the public education process, creating a legion of misinformed and otherwise maligned beings who don't do all that well in society. Meanwhile, it causes problems for successful homeschoolers and their kids, now that they're lumped in with the snake handlers, crazies and other assorted assholes.
Kevin self-matriculated from his own self-managed homeschool and wound up as "the student body president of a large (unnamed) west coast university." He homeschools his kids. He writes books for homeschoolers. Thousands, even millions of people are learning Kevin's theory on birth control's gynecological graveyard. That should bring a shudder to anyone with common sense.
