Good afternoon, Mary Sue readers! Meet Virginia State Senator Ryan McDougle! He is one of the state lawmakers who has come out to ardently support the state’s mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill, almost as if he had no idea what was really entailed in women’s health decisions that are usually made by women. He is pictured above speaking with some of his constituents, and he invites other constituents to visit him on his Facebook page! Some of them have, and they have some questions that concern their vaginas, ovaries, and uteri they have felt compelled to share with him, what with his sudden interest in the reproductive goings-on of strangers! Want to come take a look? There are screenshots!

We’re not going to deny how much we love hearing about female lawmakers on the state level standing up to their anti-choice colleagues by introducing amendments to terrible women’s health legislation that entail men undergoing similar scrutiny and invasive procedures that women would be subjected to should these bills pass. That’s why this morning, we were all pretty psyched to hear about Ohio State Senator Nina Turner. The Ohio Senate is debating its own anti-choice bill, which would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (which first happens at about six weeks after conception). Sen. Turner thinks it’s high time that men got a taste of their own medicine, so she has introduced an amendment that would require doctors to put men through a variety of tests and counseling before being prescribed the erectile dysfunction pill, Viagra. Why? Because if the Ohio Senate is “only looking out for women’s health,” then darn it, Nina Turner is going to fight for the same concern to be shown towards the menfolk!

In a move that is not exactly the most surprising of moves, several newspapers have pulled the syndicated comic Doonesbury from its funny pages for the next week because its creator, Gary Trudeau, will be tackling the issue of yet another state law (this time in Texas) requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before getting an abortion. While some papers will run old Doonesbury strips during the duration of the story, one paper has agreed to run the new strip online while running reprints in the actual newspaper. They cited “different audience expectations” for print vs. online. Uh huh.

The day after hilarious radio personality Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” who should make videos of herself having sex if she wants access to birth control pills (to show everyone she’s using them, you see), Fluke has issued a response, she received a phone call from the President, and sponsors have started dropping their ads from Limbaugh’s show. Sorry guys, we couldn’t let this one go. But let’s look at the support Fluke has been receiving since this infuriating thing happened. (Don’t worry, there is lots of support.)

Well, it’s about time they came forward and explained themselves! Courtesy of Funny or Die and a delightful group of actors (Nick Offerman, Tim Meadows, Judd Nelson, Kurtwood Smith, Ray Wise, Corey Stoll, and Brian Flaherty) those poor, misrepresented men finally get the opportunity to explain exactly why they are better at talking about women’s health issues than women are. Full disclosure, I could only watch about 28 seconds because I started to have my period. I always have that!

(via Pajiba)

Previously in Women’s Health

Thank you, Amy Poehler, for coming back to Saturday Night Live to visit your old castmate and this week’s host, Maya Rudolph, so you could join your old Weekend Update co-anchor Seth Meyers in a segment we like to call: OMG THANK YOU WE’VE BEEN UPSET ABOUT THE BIRTH CONTROL DEBATE ALL WEEK AND YOU SAID EVERYTHING PERFECTLY. Thank you, also, Saturday Night Live writers.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

(via Saturday Night Live)

The L.A. Weekly blog recently did a profile on the PyLadies. “Who are the PyLadies,” you ask? A group of talented, interesting women we’re surprised we hadn’t heard of before and are happy to tell you about now. 

“Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.” — Text from the amendment proposed by Oklahoma State Senator Constance Johnson as a protest to the state’s controversial “personhood” bill (currently being debated in the State Senate) which would force women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before going through with an abortion. Sen. Johnson tabled the amendment after making her point and explained her feelings in an op-ed in The Guardian, in which she said:

The Personhood bill would potentially allow governmental intrusion into families’ personal lives by policing what happens to a woman’s eggs without any similar thought to what happens to a man’s sperm.

My amendment seeks to draw attention to the absurdity, duplicity and lack of balance inherent in the policies of this state in regard to women.

Much like the “digital exam” amendment of Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell, Sen. Johnson never expected this to go through, regarding it as a way “to draw humorous attention to the hypocrisy and inconsistency of this proposal.” While we are proud and glad that she is fighting for women’s rights, we are also kinda tickled that the senator might be a Monty Python fan. That’s why we put the “Every Sperm Is Sacred” video after the jump.

In a Very Special Issue of Dark Horse‘s Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic, the titular ass-kicker makes a very serious decision about her future: she considers having an abortion. Is this proving to be an easy decision for her? Of course it isn’t. And this plotline is a good look at everything Twilight got wrong in Breaking Dawn, when Bella refused to end a pregnancy that was literally killing her, but then it all turned out okay in the end, because of vampire magic. Yeah. Buffy knows that’s not real, and that there are actual consequences to consider when this happens. SPOILERS after the jump.

Okay, we’ll get right to it — scientists have determined that there is no definitive G-spot that brings a woman to orgasm. But this comes with a caveat. Because as we all know, something is going on down there, and it’s making something happen. So, we’ll put this in clear, non-scientific terminology for you: there is no spot, but there’s an area. We have not been chasing unicorns.