We’re always on the lookout to tweak the blog to make it better.

FYI, here were a few enhancements made in the past several days:

• Comments will now be open on all older posts. We originally had to close them after two weeks due to spam, but that is now under control.
• Added a new and better print plugin.
• Added some features to comments, including buttons for copy, paste, and blockquotes. You can now also drag the comment box to make it bigger if you need more space when you’re typing.

I have a question for you on comments. We have the ability to nest comments, which would let you respond to a comment after the comment. Would you like that feature added, or no?

As an aside, most of you know the site was compromised March 30 and 31. Hackers succeeded in injecting scripts that directed you to spam and malware sites. It was a sophisticated hack that took two experts several hours to find.

As I said before, we will likely never know who did it, but the break-in coincidentally occurred soon after I began writing about the new Voice Of Choice website, which promises to retaliate against pro-life activists.

As a result of this incident we have signed on with the security service Sucuri, which was recommended to us by another pro-life group. I mention this as a word to the wise to other pro-life bloggers and webmasters.

Secular Pro-Life has unveiled a new website that will catalog all medical malpractice and health code violations of abortion mills across the country.

Add this information to AbortionDocs.org, which tracks abortionist malpractice and negligence violations as well as the status of their medical licenses, and AbortionWiki.org, which will be “the reference of choice for all information relating to abortion,” and pro-lifers are building an extensive reference library about the abortion industry and players.

SPL’s online database, AbortionSafety.com, provides abortion-minded women with the latest information on health violations and malpractice lawsuits, ensuring that they make more informed decisions.

Project coordinator Kelsey Hazzard says the site was inspired in part by the Chicago Method, a woman-centered sidewalk counseling approach the Pro-Life Action League has successfully employed for years.

The key difference, Hazzard said, is that AbortionSafety.com allows women to obtain accurate abortion information from the comfort of their own homes, thus giving them more time to reconsider their decisions.

“Now, we don’t have to wait until women are already at the sidewalk to give them this information,” she said. “They’ll have it as soon as they do a Google search for abortion centers in their area.”

Numerous pro-life leaders – including Students for Life of America’s Kristan Hawkins and PLAL’s Eric Scheidler – have applauded the project.

For months, volunteers across the country have combed through local courthouses for medical malpractice documents. Currently, AbortionSafety.com provides information about abortion centers in 22 states, and organizers plan to add more data soon. The site also includes information on abortion risks and alternatives.

SPL hopes that the project will create common ground in the abortion debate. Hazzard cited a series of articles that pro-choice author William Saletan wrote last year, in which he urged the abortion rights movement to combat modern-day “back-alley” abortion facilities.

“We believe this is something pro-lifers and pro-choicers can both get behind,” she concluded.

[Image via abortionsafety.com]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• An Idaho man has been sentenced to 15 years in jail after getting a 12-year-old pregnant and forcing her to have an abortion:
  
  

  Kenneth Lamb of Wilder was sentenced Monday by 3rd District Judge Molly J. Huskey to 15 to 30 years in prison on felony convictions of lewd conduct with a minor child and conspiracy to escape from jail. He pleaded guilty in January.

• Forbes has a piece by Ryan Holliday discussing Planned Parenthood’s decision not to accept a $500,000 donation from Tucker Max: It’s obvious they didn’t want the possibility of negative publicity.

  Remember that Live Action previously recorded PP employees being willing to accept donations for racist reasons.

• In India, a woman is struggling to survive after being beaten by her husband and in-laws who were attempting to kill her unborn child because they thought the child was a girl. The woman had two previous abortions which were girls or assumed to be girls:
  
  

  Police circle inspector Shaikh Usman said that the husband and in-laws of the victim, Munni, a resident of Balajipeta in Tenali town believed that she was pregnant with a girl child as a local Baba had predicted that only the 7th child in her womb will be a male. Husband hence allegedly beat up his wife that lead to miscarriage.

  This was victim’s sixth pregnancy and his husband and in-laws made her abort again and again because they didn’t want the girl child.

  As no local doctor was willing to abort the child for the third time due to her health condition, the family decided to do it themselves. Husband Allabaksh, father-in-law Rahman and mother-in-law Fathima tied her to a pole and beat her on the stomach under the impression it would lead to abortion.

[Photo via indianchild.com]

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Abolitionist Society of OK examines the implications behind the popular pro-choice t-shirt meme, “If the fetus you save is gay, will you still fight for its rights?” Actually, pro-lifers have already answered that question, which is, “Of course.” The real question is how would pro-choicers respond?

• Abortion Pill Risks reports on the questions surrounding the first known RU-486 chemical abortion pill death in Australia, which happened two years ago and has just recently made public.
• Bryan Kemper compares his experiences of participating in both pro-choice and pro-life marches in Belgium last month. He notices stark contrasts among the crowd sizes, ages, and demeanor:
  
  

  I wanted to understand and experience what makes each group come out and walk. In one case it is a fear of losing what they think is so important to women and in the other case it is a hope of ending what we know is destroying women and true women’s rights.

• Mommy Life reprints an American Spectator article that investigates the nearly $1M compensation and fringe benefits of Sister Carol Keehan (pictured left), ally of the pro-abortion Obama Administration and HHS against her own Catholic Church.
• Coming Home shares HSLDA president Michael Farris’ shocking “I can’t believe this happened in America” story about a family who came face to face with an unreasonable and controlling medical bureaucracy upon the birth of their child.
• Generations for Life encourages atheists and people of diverse faiths to band together for the cause of life:
  
  

  And so I encourage pro-lifers of all faiths to be open to one another in seeing our belief not merely as a Christian movement but a moral one. Though we may disagree with others on our belief in God, having such a diverse pro-life movement can only be an asset to us.

• Big Blue Wave believes the pro-life movement needs to address the need to be “open to life” (anti-contraception) as part of being pro-life:
  
  

  There are lots of people in favour of fetal rights who contracept. They don’t see the connection between sexuality and openness to life. They wouldn’t dream of killing their unborn child, but their lifestyles and their thinking are built on the idea of having children only when they want and under the desired circumstances. If people who support our cause can’t see the problem with that, how do we expect to change the culture?…This is something we have to tackle as a pro-life movement. Not only the morality part of it– but the lifestyle part– how do you convince people to change their lives so that being open to life isn’t some kind of moralistic burden, but actually a source of fulfillment and happiness?

by LauraLoo

I was going through withdrawals – needed another Stevie Nicks fix.  (I know there are other Stevie fans out there whose day I made. :D)

Here’s Stevie singing Stand Back during a 1987 performance. Stunning looks and vocals!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1YvRWSIQOE[/youtube]

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

UPDATE, 5:03p: Brad Mattes of Life Issues Institute forwarded me a “Response to PepsiCo Denial,” in the event one of us received a email from PepsiCo stating:

Please know that PepsiCo does not conduct or fund research that utilizes any human tissue or cell lines derived from embryos.

And wouldn’t you know reader Pam just received such an email from PepsiCo and forwarded it to me. So those emailing Pepsi will find LII’s paper handy.

10:29: I have received a few requests from pro-lifers like Vicki:

Can you provide some clarity to the Pepsi/cells from aborted babies controversy.  I cannot sort out whether this is valid or not.

Yes and No

Bottom line: There are no aborted embryonic or fetal cells in any of PepsiCo’s final products.

But: Aborted cells are used in the development of artificial flavor enhancers by biotech company Senomyx, with which PepsiCo signed a four-year, $30 million agreement in 2010 for research and development. No Pepsi products containing Senonymx flavor enhancers should be expected until 2013.

Senomyx’s disputed cell line is HEK-293, derived from the kidney cells of an aborted baby. We could go into the weeds at this point, but Wikipedia offers an easy explanation:

HEK stands for Human Embryonic Kidney cells. These cells, which were cloned, originally came from healthy, electively aborted human embryos. Using information from the human genome sequence, Senomyx has identified hundreds of taste receptors and currently owns 113 patents on their discoveries.

Ick factor

A little more on those taste receptors from cogforlife.org, which originally made the connection between PepsiCo, Senomyx, and aborted cells:

These… taste receptors… produce a chemical signal that lets Senomyx researchers know they have achieved the exact flavor they are trying to develop.

Snopes concurs… sort of

Snopes, in a post last updated on March 18, basically comes to a similar conclusion as the aforementioned, calling the claim that “Pepsi uses material from aborted fetuses in it products” a “mixture” of “false” and “undetermined.”

Snopes states it is “false” to claim Pepsi products contain aborted baby cells, but it is “undetermined” whether Senomyx uses aborted cells in R&D, basically because Senonymx won’t answer the question.

But Snopes goes into great detail, citing articles by CBS News, Forbes, and Miami New Times, to corroborate that Senomyx indeed does. There is actually no question on that point, so Snopes should change “undetermined” to “true.”

Plot thickens with help by Obama administration

LifeSiteNews.com reported on March 5 that shareholders shall remain in the dark, thanks to the SEC:

In a decision delivered Feb 28th, President Obama’s Security and Exchange Commission ruled that PepsiCo’s use of cells derived from aborted fetal remains in their research and development agreement with Senomyx to produce flavor enhancers falls under “ordinary business operations.”

The letter signed by Attorney Brian Pitko of the SEC Office of Chief Counsel was sent in response to a 36-page document submitted by PepsiCo attorneys in January, 2012.

In that filing, PepsiCo pleaded with the SEC to reject the Shareholder’s Resolution filed in October 2011 that the company “adopt a corporate policy that recognizes human rights and employs ethical standards which do not involve using the remains of aborted human beings in both private and collaborative research and development agreements.”

Boycott PepsiCo

Senomyx has since removed the list of all its partners, but cogforlife.org got a screenshot. Those include Kraft and Nestle, future boycott targets according to c4l.

But the boycott starts with Pepsi. From Brad Mattes of Life Issues Institute:

PepsiCo will continue their efforts to keep the controversy quiet, but the pro-life community’s boycott of Pepsi products and exposing the outrage isn’t going to lose its fizz anytime soon.

Here’s what I need you to do.  BOYCOTT Pepsi products.  Click here for the link that will tell you what they are.

Contact PepsiCo directly by clicking here. Tell them why you’re boycotting their products.

Let others know by leaving a comment on the company’s Facebook page. Post comments on your own Facebook and Twitter pages.

The only way to stop this atrocity is if you and I make enough noise. Together, we must put PepsiCo under the spotlight and expose their willingness to make money off the bodies of aborted babies.

Sarandon has never shied away from using her celebrity to spotlight causes that include abortion rights, repealing the death penalty and opposing the Iraq War.

~ Interview with actress Susan Sarandon, People magazine’s April 2 newsstand issue. Read a portion of her interview
online.

[HT: Jill; photo via Red River Autographs]

Seventeen months after Planned Parenthood paid $733,151 cash for a 17,050 sq ft unfinished shell in Auburn Hills, Michigan, it stands empty as a neighboring hotel owner continues to battle the abortion giant in court, claiming a deed restriction prevents the structure from being used as an abortion mill.

Four walls and a dirt floor, that’s all it is. Planned Parenthood may have won Round 1 in January but apparently has no confidence it will win Round 2. From the Oakland Press, March 9:

Desiree Cooper, director of Community and Media Relations for Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan… said any planned remodeling or other work on the building is on hold pending the court appeal.

Making matters worse for Planned Parenthood, the State of Michigan cancelled a $200,000 grant when PP didn’t begin interior completion by the end of 2011. This is money PP will likely never see again from the cash-strapped state.

Furthermore, commercial property values in the area have decreased dramatically. A commercial adviser who has performed a physical inspection of the property told Real Estate for Life ‘s Dave Theisen it is now worth probably $150-250k less than it was in November 2010. Plus there are several comparable vacant commercial properties in the area that are finished.

Planned Parenthood thought it had pulled a fast one when its attorney got the Comfort Inn owners next door to agree to the sale without mentioning the A-word or that the purchaser was the PP-word. But it appears to have purchased a money pit.

Meanwhile, PP just opened a storefront clinic in Ferndale, about 30 minutes from Auburn Hills.

Pro-lifers picketed that mill today, which doesn’t commit abortions but does refer for them, which amounts to the same thing: more babies being killed by Planned Parenthood….

God bless ’em, pro-lifers organized a 40 Days for Life campaign in front of PP’s vacant Auburn Hills property, reminding all who drove by that Planned Parenthood is not welcome there.