# Homeschooling biology FAILURE **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 5, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352 "2013-02-05T02:28:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pythonzzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@pythonzzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pythonzzz)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/1 "2013-02-05T02:28:07Z")
Dumbfuck homeschool shill Kevin Swanson fails at basic reproductive biology: > [@](#): > > 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. 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. > **[Example Domain](http://example.com/)** My, my. The wingnuts just keep sinking lower… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/2 "2013-02-05T02:39:50Z")
If you follow the link to the original story, it’s even nuttier. You see, it all started with Hitler… ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/3 "2013-02-05T02:43:06Z")
Thanks for the nightmares, fella! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/4 "2013-02-05T03:06:33Z")
There’s not enough facepalm in the world for this guy. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/5 "2013-02-05T03:09:25Z")
This was in the stupid Republican thread, but I think it is a topic by itself. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15964281&postcount=8455](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15964281&postcount=8455) It has always seemed disingenuous to me that anti-abortionists do not routinely hand out free condoms at their protests. Maybe “pro-life” needs another name like, “let us control your gonads”, which is more descriptive. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/6 "2013-02-05T03:11:50Z")
The current wing-nut motto" “Welcome to the fact free community!” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/7 "2013-02-05T03:18:20Z")
What I always find irresistibly mystifying in these wingnut stories is trying to figure out what particular grain of actual information the wingnuts latched onto and unrecognizably distorted with their clueless speculation. And I think I’ve [got it!](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-information/DR602119) > [@actual reproductive science](#): > > Oral contraceptives are known also as the Pill, OCs, BCs, BC tablets, or birth control pills. This medicine usually contains two types of hormones, estrogens and progestins and, when taken properly, prevents pregnancy. It works by stopping a woman’s egg from fully developing each month. The egg can no longer accept a sperm and fertilization is prevented. Although oral contraceptives have other effects that help prevent a pregnancy from occurring, this is the main action. > > Sometimes a woman’s egg can still develop even though the medication is taken once each day, especially when more than 24 hours pass between two doses. In almost all cases when the medicine was taken properly and an egg develops, fertilization can still be stopped by oral contraceptives. This is because oral contraceptives also thicken cervical mucus at the opening of the uterus. This makes it hard for the partner’s sperm to reach the egg. _In addition, oral contraceptives change the uterus lining just enough so that an egg will not stop in the uterus to develop._ Emphasis added. I think that must have been the ultimate source of this bizarre idea. You can easily see how “occasionally occurring fertilized ova are prevented by oral-contraceptive hormones from developing in the uterus” could be interpreted as “women on birth control have lots and lots of little tiny dead-baby fetuses embedded in their wombs”. If you’re a clueless moron ignorant of reproductive biology, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Crime\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e495f1/32.png) [@Crime\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crime_Scene)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/8 "2013-02-05T03:28:36Z")
Good Lord… What kind of f’n fruit boot thinks of this shit? There can’t be more than a handful of people who believe this, right!?! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/9 "2013-02-05T03:52:22Z")
**Kimstu** : good work identifying the likely origin of the (grotesque and stupid!) misconception (pun intended.) This kind of analysis is fascinating! (It reminds me of Stephen Jay Gould tracking down the origin of the VERY commonplace description of [Eohippus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eohippus) as “about the size of a small fox terrier.”) Hey, waitaminnit! This is the Pit! You left out the cuss-words! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/10 "2013-02-05T03:58:41Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > . You can easily see how “occasionally occurring fertilized ova are prevented by oral-contraceptive hormones from developing in the uterus” could be interpreted as “women on birth control have lots and lots of little tiny dead-baby fetuses embedded in their wombs”. If you’re a clueless moron ignorant of reproductive biology, that is. Exactly. Something which says that fetuses are hardly ever made and can’t stay in the uterus if they are is easily interpreted to mean women make dozens of dead baby fetuses which get stuck in their uteruses…if you’re a total moron living in Backwardsville. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/11 "2013-02-05T04:04:20Z")
They’re just sitting there, stuck to the uterine wall, waving their tiny little arms and crying out for help. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/12 "2013-02-05T04:11:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > They’re just sitting there, stuck to the uterine wall, waving their tiny little arms and crying out for help. And here I spent a decade on the pill, thinking it gave me gas. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/13 "2013-02-05T04:13:30Z")
It might make for a decent horror movie. At least a made-for-TV on the Sci-Fi channel type. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/14 "2013-02-05T04:13:38Z")
A long time ago I heard (where? I don’t know) that if a woman has a hysterectomy the doctor can somehow “see” how many zygotes have implanted in a woman’s uterus. The surprising thing about this (I heard, again) was that most women have the marks of several more implantations than they thought they ought to; in other words, women spontaneously abort many pregnancies before they even realize they are pregnant. Of course, that’s something I’ve heard repeatedly from reliable sources. I have no idea if any of that is true. But if it is, or if someone else heard the same thing and was a moron, they could probably twist it into the baloney from the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/15 "2013-02-05T04:15:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **Kimstu** : […] > Hey, waitaminnit! This is the Pit! You left out the cuss-words! Ooops, sorry! Wait, no, I mean oh drat. Pickles! Son of a Patagonian postal worker! Sorry, I can’t do my thinks and my swears at the same time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/16 "2013-02-05T04:24:26Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > A long time ago I heard (where? I don’t know) that if a woman has a hysterectomy the doctor can somehow “see” how many zygotes have implanted in a woman’s uterus. The surprising thing about this (I heard, again) was that most women have the marks of several more implantations than they thought they ought to; in other words, women spontaneously abort many pregnancies before they even realize they are pregnant. Of course, that’s something I’ve heard repeatedly from reliable sources. > > I have no idea if any of that is true. > > But if it is, or if someone else heard the same thing and was a moron, they could probably twist it into the baloney from the OP. That part is mostly true. It’s also given root to the notion that abortions make you infertile. The truth is that zygotes can’t implant where there’s scar tissue, and the placenta detaching does tend to create a scar. So if you’ve had lots of pregnancies (whether they ended in miscarriage, abortion or birth), your risk of future miscarriages does go up, because there are just fewer spots left for good implantation and a strong placenta. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/17 "2013-02-05T04:31:26Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > A long time ago I heard (where? I don’t know) that if a woman has a hysterectomy the doctor can somehow “see” how many zygotes have implanted in a woman’s uterus. A-ha! That must be what Swanson meant by “the surgery”: > [@](#): > > 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 Oh, and [here we go](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/zygotes-lost-with-birth-control-v-without-birth-control.html): > [@](#): > > Zygotes Lost With Birth Control v. Without Birth Control > > A few weeks ago I came upon a blog post by Sarah of Who I Am Without You comparing the number of fertilized eggs, or zygotes, that fail to implant and are flushed out of a woman’s body when she is on the pill with the number of fertilized eggs that naturally fail to implant and are flushed out when a woman is not on the pill. […] > > Every month, a woman’s body releases an egg. If there is sperm there waiting, the egg becomes fertilized. This is when I was taught life – including personhood and the bestowing of a soul – began. This fertilized egg, or zygote, then travels into the uterus, where it implants in the uterine wall. That is when pregnancy begins. The birth control pill works primarily by preventing ovulation in the first place, and also by impeding sperm so that it can’t get to to an egg to fertilize it. But leading organizations in the pro-life movement argue that there is some chance that women on the pill will have “breakthrough ovulation,” and if this occurs and sperm somehow make their way to the egg, you could technically end up with a fertilized egg. They further suggest that because the pill also thins the uterine lining, this fertilized egg would be flushed out of a woman’s body rather than implanting in her uterus. […] > > Without Birth Control: > Out of 100 fertile women without birth control, 100 of them will ovulate in any given month. > Out of those 100 released eggs, 33 will become fertilized. > Out of those 33, 50% will be rejected by the uterus. > In a group of 100 women not on birth control: 16 zygotes will “die” > > With Birth Control: > Out of 100 fertile women on birth control, around 1.5 of them will ovulate in any given month. > Out of those 1.5 released eggs, only 10 to 15% will become fertilized. > Out of those 0.15, 100% will be rejected by the uterus. > In a group of 100 women on birth control: 0.15 zygotes will “die” **miss elizabeth** , you’re brilliant. This is undoubtedly the issue that forms the microscopic factual core of Swanson’s utterly bizarre claim. As **WhyNot** noted, all Swanson did was mistake “menstruation flushing a rejected zygote out of the womb” for “rejected zygotes becoming embedded as tiny dead babies inside the womb”, and “women on oral contraceptives produce far fewer dead-baby rejected zygotes than women not on them” for “only women on oral contraceptives accumulate these dead-baby rejected zygotes”. Heck, those are pretty trivial errors, aren’t they? I say we give the poor guy a pass. Preferably a pass for a first-class aisle seat on the next outbound Mars rover. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/18 "2013-02-05T04:43:09Z")
If anything, that’s an argument for abortion! I imagine they think a woman’s womb looks like this: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0B0sFtRTlx4/hqdefault.jpg "Aliens - kill me") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B0sFtRTlx4) ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/19 "2013-02-05T04:51:26Z")
What pisses me off isn’t just that there are idiots out there who think this crap up, but there are even more idiots who listen to and believe them. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352/20 "2013-02-05T05:02:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > They’re just sitting there, stuck to the uterine wall, waving their tiny little arms and crying out for help. snicker > [@Guinastasia](#): > > It might make for a decent horror movie. At least a made-for-TV on the Sci-Fi channel type. it really would. > [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > A long time ago I heard (where? I don’t know) that if a woman has a hysterectomy the doctor can somehow “see” how many zygotes have implanted in a woman’s uterus. The surprising thing about this (I heard, again) was that most women have the marks of several more implantations than they thought they ought to; in other words, women spontaneously abort many pregnancies before they even realize they are pregnant. Of course, that’s something I’ve heard repeatedly from reliable sources. > > I have no idea if any of that is true. > > But if it is, or if someone else heard the same thing and was a moron, they could probably twist it into the baloney from the OP. that makes sense, unless that jackass actually believes that an egg needs to implant and grow into a full baby to get out of the body, though I wonder what he thinks the menses are in that case. :dubious: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeschooling-biology-failure/649352.md?page=2)