Amadi Talks

As an uproar was sounded across the nation over “transvaginal” and ultrasounds performed in that fashion, we are now getting reports that mandated transvaginal ultrasounds are no longer a part of mandatory ultrasound before abortion bills in Alabama and potentially Virginia.

Be wary.

So long as the bills still mandate either:
- a detailed description of the anatomy of the embryo/fetus made during ultrasound
- a gestational age determined by ultrasound

Then they’re still mandating transvaginal ultrasounds, even of that word isn’t in the bill, even if the bill says abdominal ultrasound can be used IF the required information can be provided that way. In the first trimester of pregnancy it’s very rarely possible to ascertain the level of detail demanded by these bills abdominally, because the embryo/fetus is simply too small.

Be aware. Be wary. Don’t trust that the outrage will actually make a difference to those whose only real objective is creating barriers to abortion access.

Just to address the numerous questions I’ve been getting in my Ask box, and via twitter:

• MEDIA: Media contacts are being sorted out. A number of you have mentioned passing this on to outlets ranging from the University of Pittsburgh News to CNN and I thank you all for that, but at this point I will be sorting out which outlets to talk to in coming days, and would appreciate it if readers, outraged though you all may be, would allow me to do that for myself.
• VOTER RECORDS: Yes, they are public record. My question at this point is why this representative takes it upon himself to look up this information before corresponding with a constituent. I live in his district (I live less than 5 minutes from him/his business/his office). Whether I vote every time the polls are open or have never registered, he represents me. It’s a backwards way to go about things, and yes, it utterly angers me.
• THE DAUGHTER(S): Apparently some of you have Googled or Facebooked and have found Readshaw’s daughter(s) and have wondered if you should contact them, or if I’d like their contact info, to let them know about the disclosure their father is sending out. Right now, I have no intention of personally contacting them. That would be, in its way, as inappropriate and creepy as their father’s actions, and when they find out, and I think that they will, it’ll be through a different means.
• NEXT STEPS: On Monday I will be making phone calls. I’m going to look into the ethical issues involved in this, including (perhaps especially) the fact that by personally handwriting this letter, it may have bypassed requirements for storage and retention of correspondence. I’m going to be looking into that, as well as addressing the inappropriate disclosure matter.

liquornspice:

sourcedumal:

liquornspice:

ethiopienne:

mayhue:

ethiopienne:

people who are allowed to decide how rihanna should respond to abuse:

• rihanna

people who are not allowed to decide how rihanna should respond to abuse:

• everyone else

 

people who shouldn’t exploit their abuse to make money

• rihanna and her record company

oh FUCK YOU and your misogynistic, victim-blaming, fallacy-ridden pseudologic.

If I could make money off the most horrible experiences in my life you can bet I FUCKIN WOULD IN A SECOND.  Like, what? Dude beat me? Fuck him, I’ll sell that story and buy myself all the fancy shit I want forever. WHO GON CHECK ME BOO????

^^^^^ WORD! Why the fuck SHOULDN’T she get paid? Most folks who have been abused don’t get that. Hell, many don’t even get to live. Why the fuck shouldn’t she take that and make better for herself.

Miss me with that “You’re not doing being abused right” bullshit. Fuck you mayhue. With a chainsaw in the face.

Word.

And the last thing we need is some “feminists” getting all full of themselves, tweeting at Rihanna, calling her Robyn like they know her, telling her about all their disappointments. It’s already getting thick and deep. I’m about done.

blackamazon:

serenadedhourly:

Executing the spanking scenes: “There was a box which he hit, so he was nowhere near me, thank God! I did actually say to Michael before one of the scenes — I was like, ‘I’ve got a security guard outside. You touch me and he’s gonna break your legs!’ And he was like, ‘Keira, you’re tied to a bed. You’re not really in a position to say that.’ I said, ‘I guess you’re right.’… [I did] a couple of shots of vodka — definitely — beforehand, and then a couple of glasses of champagne as a celebration of never having to do that again!”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

Jesus H. THAT is my new happy place, imagining Michael Fassbender saying, “You’re tied to a bed. You’re not really in a position to say that.” DEAR GOD. I don’t understand women like Keira. How can she do those scenes without rolling over and begging Michael to take her roughly against the period canopy bed in front of God, David Cronenberg and assorted Teamsters?

1. These are quotes from the article. Emphasis mine because… uh, wow.

God forbid a woman is not comfortable with those scenes. She even called up the writers beforehand and was going to turn them down BECAUSE of those scenes. So, you know, I think she’s well within her rights to show discomfort and Fassbender is not within his rights to jokingly emphasise that she’s “tied up to a bed”. Way to be comforting, dick.

Wanna know how…. EASY! SHE DOESN’T WANT HIM! 

This stuff right here this entirely, power hungry political alignment masquerading as romantic/sexual submission or kink 

INFURIATES ME.

Because really what their saying is

” Oh my god !! He’s so hot and in and powerful right now. And he’ll use it ON YOU!! YOU GET TO BE CLOSE TO THE POWER !!!!!! And because your magical ( usually white) nether regions can entice ANY POWER into you

YOU ARE POWERFUL 

HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT POWER KIERA!?!?!?!

Where is a pretty deep feminist analysis of what sounds like a woman having to ” lie back and think of England” because some dude thought it was funny to make it none he could HAVE NO RESPECT FOR HER BOUNDARIES IF HE SO CHOSE! Like needing to drink to numb herself and drink after to get through

CAUSE HE’S POWERFUL?!?!

But if a woman CHOOSES to be with someone they don’t approve of … 

And let’s not forget, please, that Michael Fassbender is an abuser of women. Michael Fassbender is an abuser of women. Repeat it as often as necessary to understand it. This is a man who has no problem physically hurting women in his real life, if I’d been Keira Knightley I wouldn’t have filmed a scene like that with this man for all the money in the world.

garlandgrey:

Point of honor, will fight somebody, etc.

If it weren’t for your maturity none of this would have happened
If you weren’t so wise beyond your years I would’ve been able to control myself
If it weren’t for my attention you wouldn’t have been successful and
If it weren’t for me you would never have amounted to very much

Ooh this could be messy
But you don’t seem to mind
Ooh don’t go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime

We’ll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have honored your request for silence
And you’ve washed your hands clean of this

You’re essentially an employee and I like you having to depend on me
You’re a kind of my protégé and one day you’ll say you learned all you know from me
I know you depend on me like a young thing would to a guardian
I know you sexualize me like a young thing would but I think I like it

Ooh this could get messy
But you don’t seem to mind
Ooh don’t go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime

We’ll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
I’ve more than honored your request for silence
And you’ve washed your hands clean of this

What part of our history’s reinvented and under rug swept?
What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget?
What with this distance it seems so obvious?

Just make sure you don’t tell on me especially to members of your family
We best keep this to ourselves and not tell any members of our inner posse
I wish I could tell the world cause you’re such a pretty thing when you’re done up properly
I might want to marry you one day if you watch that weight and keep your firm body

Ooh this could be messy and
Ooh I don’t seem to mind
Ooh don’t go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime

We’ll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have than honored your request for silence
And you’ve washed your hands clean of this

Tumblr, am I really having to defend people with disabilities who are able to walk having handicapped parking permits/placards/plates to some dude who uses a wheelchair and says that anyone who can walk isn’t disabled, just lazy?

Yes, apparently, I am. WTF?

I am about to get personal in a way I rarely do, and emotional in a way that I haven’t, in this space. Bear with me.

My maternal great-grandmother died of breast cancer. She had 14 children.

Those 14 children were evenly divided. Seven daughters, seven sons.

My grandmother died of breast cancer.

All six of my grandmother’s sisters had breast cancer.

Five of my grandmother’s sisters died of breast cancer. The sixth is still with us after battling it three times.

But that sixth sister? Her daughter died of breast cancer at age 43. She left behind two daughters of her own.

And the seven brothers? Not unscathed. Each of them with a daughter has had a daughter with breast cancer.

Three of those daughters have died. Two also left behind daughters of their own as well.

This disease has more than decimated my family. It’s orphaned my mother and her sisters. It took my favorite aunt, the one I spent summers with as a little girl. It took my grandmother. It’s left my young cousins motherless girls. Girls need their mothers.

For me the fight against breast cancer is extremely personal.

For years my family has supported the Susan G Komen foundation. We’ve walked in the 5ks as a team, the survivors so proud in their pink shirts and hats. We’ve bought the pink ribbon items. Every one we could find. We pooled our money to buy my cousin the pink Kitchen Aid stand mixer to celebrate the end of her chemotherapy. All of our cars have sun fading in the shape of the pink ribbon magnets we happily stuck on our bumpers.

This isn’t political for me, beyond the continual fight for single-payer healthcare. Had some of the women in my family had earlier and stronger access to medical care they may have been spared the loss of their health, the loss of their breasts, the loss of their lives.

This isn’t political for me, beyond the continual fight in favor of what is derisively called Obamacare. I know as a person with pre-existing conditions, it is the only way I will have access to medical care. I am now in the age window when women in my family receive their first diagnoses. I have to be careful.

The Komen foundation has been selling us a bill of goods. They lobbied against improved and expanded health care access, breast cancer care access, for poor women.

And now this defunding of Planned Parenthood. (Don’t be confused by the headlines. Funding is “restored” but only for this year, and only to some affiliates. Next year? No one knows. And I think Komen is counting on us not remembering and not paying attention.) they made it political.

On a purely personal level I think I made it clear how I deal with my political opponents.

Some people are calling this partial restoration for 2012 a “victory” but for me? Victory will be the day that the Susan G Komen foundation no longer exists.

As for me, in the name of all the women who came before, whose memories I must bear as a legacy of the devastation of breast cancer, I vow: not another penny not ever again.

The Susan G Komen foundation has destroyed its goodwill, has squandered its good name. They did it long ago but we didn’t realize it then. Now we know. I for one will not forget.

I hope that you won’t forget either.

Not another penny. Not ever again.

Fund planned parenthood. Fund your local health clinics. Agitate so that no one has to rely upon charity and the goodwill of organizations to get basic health care, a human need, a human right, any more. We are better than that. We can do better than that.

Not another penny. Not ever again. It’s time for something new.

Will you help me find it?

undercovernun:

Undercover Nun has removed the PayPal donation box from the sidebar.  Why, you might ask?  Because of this:

Endorse Liberty, a super PAC supporting Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, received nearly a million dollars from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, new documents show.

Thiel’s $900,000 makes him the single largest contributor in the short time since the PAC was founded on December 20, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Since founding PayPal in 1998, Thiel now runs the hedge fund Clarium Capital. His net worth has been reported to be at least $1.5 billion.

I’ve set up an Amazon Payments account, but I haven’t replaced the donation box widget.

Paypal has long been a horrible, horrible company. We all know this. It’s time to kick them to the curb.