Unborn baby Samuel Armas reaches out to his doctor during fetal surgery in August 1999. Michael Clancy, the photographer who snapped the amazing image, will share his first-hand witness to the humanity of the unborn at the NRL Convention in July.
Posted on 05/05/2008 2:10:49 PM PDT by rhema
One moment can change your life. That’s what Michael Clancy has discovered in the eight and a half years since he snapped the groundbreaking photo of an unborn baby clutching his doctor’s hand during fetal surgery.
Clancy is now a fervent pro-lifer, spreading the message that unborn babies are precious human beings and deserve protection. He will be a featured speaker at the upcoming NRL Convention in Washington, D.C., July 3–5.
“It was the earliest human interaction ever recorded,” Clancy told NRL News. “It proved that the child at 21 weeks in utero is a reactive human being.”
When he took the photo in August 1999, Clancy was a freelance photographer filming the fetal surgery procedure for USA Today. Unborn baby Samuel Armas had been diagnosed with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, which occur when the spinal column fails to fuse properly, leaving a lesion (or opening) that is highly susceptible to infection. Dr. Joseph Bruner and his team at Vanderbilt University were operating to close the lesion.
After the incision was made in mother Julie Armas’s abdomen, her uterus was removed and laid on her thighs. An opening was made in the uterus, and the surgeons were supposed to operate on Samuel without any part of his body emerging from inside.
However, as Clancy eloquently describes on his web site, www.michaelclancy.com, “out of the corner of my eye I saw the uterus shake, but no one’s hands were near it. It was shaking from within. Suddenly, an entire arm thrust out of the opening, then pulled back until just a little hand was showing.
“The doctor reached over and lifted the hand, which reacted and squeezed the doctor’s finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shook the tiny fist. Samuel held firm. I took the picture! Wow! It happened so fast that the nurse standing next to me asked, ‘What happened?’ ‘The child reached out,’ I said. ‘Oh. They do that all the time,’ she responded.”
The amazing photograph of Samuel reaching out to his doctor appeared in USA Today and The Tennessean September 7, 1999. Although Clancy never sought notoriety, his work immediately caught the attention of the media and of people around the world.
Clancy was shocked, however, when fetal surgeon Joseph Bruner told USA Today in May 2000 that the photo did not show purposeful movement by Samuel. Bruner claimed that he saw the hand near the incision and he “reached over and picked it up. … The baby did not reach out. The baby was anesthetized. The baby was not aware of what was going on.”
But Clancy posted on his web site the series of frames that depict the moment of contact between Samuel and Dr. Bruner, and they show that Samuel is moving his own hand, grasping the doctor.
“The doctor questioned my credibility,” Clancy told NRL News. “But Samuel punched out, and even damaged the surgical opening. That 21-week-old child reacted to the touch of his surgeon.”
Clancy went on to testify at a congressional hearing in 2003 along with then-three-year-old Samuel, who was born 15 weeks after his surgery. During the hearing, as reported in National Review, Sen. Sam Brownback pointed to a large copy of Clancy’s photo and asked Samuel who it was. “Baby Samuel,” he answered. Brownback then asked what was happening. “They fixed my boo-boo,” said Samuel.
Although he considers himself “shy,” Clancy agreed to speak at the annual banquet of a local crisis pregnancy center about two and a half years ago. After he spoke, “they gave me the first standing ovation I ever had,” Clancy recalled. “Afterwards, 20 to 30 people were lined up to speak with me, and told me I need to continue telling my story.”
Clancy listened to their advice, and is now telling people about his first-hand witness to the humanity of the unborn. He also encourages people to download the photo from his web site and distribute it far and wide.
“It changes one heart at a time, that’s what this picture does,” he said. “This is God’s work. This is the youngest interaction with a child inside the womb ever recorded. As long as it keeps being put where people can see it, it can save lives.”
Great photograph. God continues to tell His side of the story with happenings such as this.
Too bad the doctor tried to twist facts.
as a nation, america needs to repent and humble itself before almighty God and pray for mercy.
Absolutely amazing.
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. Psalm 139:14 KJV
I’ve seen that picture before, probably when it was first published. But it still makes the screen get a little blurry. Thank you.
Sadly and shockingly, I found out my own doctor-(who is gentle, mild mannered & caring in practice) not only belongs to the Democrat Party, but openly abides abortion in his literature...
..I truly had no idea, but now he's running for Congress, the truth comes out....I'm more than disappointed.
I have since found a pro-life doctor.
While the doctor seems to have a different opinion on whether the baby reacted or not, what I instantly noted is that he both referred to the baby as...a baby and he admitted the basic truth that a baby will feel pain if not anesthetized. Of course the most radical pro-choicers claim that a "fetus" doesn't feel pain because to admit as such is to admit that a "fetus" is a baby. Thus any abortion where a baby would feel pain is allowed so as to avoid admitting the reality of a baby's agony when being aborted which would then open up a whole 'nother can of truth worms.
I may be wrong but I believe Drudge got canned by CNN for showing this picture on his brief tv show stint.
The theme of an episode of the TV show House was a pregnant mother who kept refusing treatment that would harm her unborn child. House was his insufferable self and constantly berated the woman for not aborting the “fetus”. Cutty, his woman boss, stood by the woman to support her decision.
Late in the episode House performed surgery on the pregnant mother and they reenacted the picture above. There was genuine wonder on the face of House as the infant grasped his finger. His attitude visibly changed at the end of the show.
ping
Oh yes, you are absolutely right. I cringe at the thought of God’s justice being levied on this nation, God help us, He’s the only one that can. Man’s justice is a mere shadow of what should be practiced and that’s if it is addressed as honestly as humanly possible—a mere shadow.
When my wife was 14 wks pregnant we did an amniocentesis because of prior miscarriage problems. The doctor used an ultrasound machine to locate a spot away from the baby to remove amniotic fluid. After the needle was inserted, into the view of the ultrasound floated a tiny, tiny hand. It touched the shank of the needle, jerked away, then the hand came back and tapped the needle again before disappearing.
The doctor said she’d seen it happen before, but still we were all amazed that this 14 wk old baby had sensed an intrusion in his space and had come over to “check it out”.
Simply awe-inspiring.
So photographer Clancy thinks he knows better than a surgeon who is experienced at performing life-saving surgeries on babies in utero? Gimme a break! There are PLANTS that will grip a finger that touches them! If the surgeon says the baby was anesthetized, then the baby was anesthetized. If it hadn't been, it would have been in excruciating pain from having its spine surgically manipulated.
Thanks for sharing that. When is he going to be here?
Oh, how I pray God forgives us.
[On his website, Clancy tells a different story about Bruner’s quote and his reason for making it.]
” In the hushed but crowded operating room where outsiders have gathered to watch a rare medical event - spinal surgery on a child still in his mother’s womb - a stool falls with a loud bang.
Shh, says, Joseph Bruner, the surgeon leading the operation. “You’ll wake the baby.”
This is an exact quote from the original USA Today article by the reporter, Robert Davis, published, Sept. 7th, 1999.
Samuel received no anesthesia directly for the procedure. What anesthesia he did receive was from his mother being under general anesthesia. Dr. Bruner has said many times, “Samuel was under anesthesia, he was not aware of what was going on.” As , …….. if he wasn’t under anesthesia he would be aware of what was going on at 21 weeks (in the womb).
As a journalist my job is to expose injustice and hope that that exposure will initiate social change.
“There is little debate about whether the child in utero is alive; the debate is over whether or not the child is a life worthy of protection.”
These are the words I heard Senator Sam Brownback speak, at the 2003 Senate Hearing, as I sat next to the child I had captured in my photograph reaching from his mother’s womb.
My struggle for the Truth behind my picture has been more difficult than I could ever have imagined. More than once, I found myself on the threshold of sanity, staring into the abyss. More than once I found myself on the verge of taking my own life. If I did not have GOD in my life I would not be writing this. But ……. my life is not mine to take. No one’s life is ours to take. Then we get back to the question posed by Senator Brownback, ” Is a child’s life worthy of protection?”
Sometimes I think I am dreaming, and I’m going to wake up any minute. Has the last eight years of my life been a screenplay, produced by Mel Gibson, worthy of a follow-up to the Passion of the Christ? Is it possible that the story of the unborn child that reached from his mother’s womb, and how the doctor lied, is The story that ignites a Rallying Cry that would result in the protection of all unborn children?
“Shh, ………. you’ll wake the baby.”
Michael C.
Posted in I Need Your Help | 5 Comments »
Blessings
Aug 11th, 2007 by michael
The story of Samuel reaching from the womb is a story about blessings. At 43 years old I came to what I call, “The end of myself.” God had blessed me when HE put a camera in my hand, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted/needed more. HE led me to the tiny church in the mountains of North Carolina and guided me through HIS path to salvation. Three months after I professed my faith to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I received the assignment to photograph Samuel’s surgery. I had always wanted someone in my life I loved so much I was willing to die for them. Someone that was willing to die for me. I found HIM! HE had patiently waited for me, and HE blessed me with Love, Forgiveness, Works, and such blessing there was not enough room to receive it. Bless you, Michael C.
Posted in I Need Your Help | 2 Comments »
I Need Your Help!
Jul 31st, 2007 by michael
The following is the sequence of events that have taken place since I received the assignment to photograph the miraculous surgical procedure to correct spina bifida in the womb.
1. I walked into Dr. Joseph P. Bruner’s operating room as a (freelance) representative (photographer) for USA Today and I was assaulted by medical personnel in an apparent attempt to stop me from getting the picture of Samuel reaching from the womb.
2. Life Magazine tried to purchase all rights to my picture of Samuel reaching out to keep it from ever being published. The act of this unborn child allowed me to scoop the cover story of Life Magazine’s Millenium Issue. (Dec. 1999)
3. Matt Drudge tried to show the picture that was published in the November 1999 issue of “The National Enquirer” on his Fox TV Show and network censors refused to allow him to display the image. Mr. Drudge walked off the set and that was the end of his television career. Now he is the owner of “The Drudge Report”, a website that receives an average of 15 million visitors a day.
4. The Tennessean Newspaper published the article titled, “The Picture That Went Around The World,” January 9th, 2000. For this article Dr. Joseph Bruner told Tennessean reporter, Bill Snyder, he had taken Samuel’s hand out of the uterus and posed the picture for the photographer. The headline on that issue’s front page was, “The Music City Miracle.” That headline referred to the Tennessee Titans making the playoffs. Dr. Joseph P. Bruner committed fraud on a global scale when he told media representatives from around the world, “the picture was not real, it was posed.”
5. Newsweek published the picture in their June 2003 issue with the cover story, “Should A Fetus Have Rights?” That issue was held up on the floor of the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate, to display the picture of Samuel reaching from the womb during the debates of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion. Samuel, his family and I, were invited by President Bush to attend the signing into law of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion. I was told the picture was very influencial in the passing of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion into Law?
6. September 25th 2003, I testified before a Senate Hearing, sitting next to the child I had captured in my photograph reaching from the womb. Samuel was three years old. I testified about the public reaction to the picture and Samuel told Senator Brownback, “they fixed my boo-boo.”
7. April 2007, the TV Show “House” re-created the picture in an episode titled “Fetal Position.”
8. August 19, 2007 will be 8 years that I have tried to tell my story. Many people have emailed me and stated that it doesn’t matter what the doctor said about the picture, it speaks for itself. It does matter ……… Samuel, as an unborn child made history when he reached from his mother’s womb. The Earliest Human Interaction Ever Recorded!
9. Eight years after the picture, Dr. Joseph P. Bruner is no longer involved in fetal surgery. He was the pioneer of this procedure. Bruner has lost his job at Vanderbilt and is running from the truth behind the picture. When contacted by media, Bruner claims to be under a Gag Order and can make no comment regarding my picture or Samuel’s surgery.
This is how you can help and it may be the most important thing you have ever done. Please send Dr. Bruner a letter or card of encouragement. Tell him that you love him. That you are praying for him. That you understand why he could never admit the unborn child he was performing experimental surgery on came out from under the anesthesia too soon. Please-please-please-be loving, and send your cards and letters to:
Dr. Joseph Bruner
Trustees Tower
501 19th St., #304
Knoxville, TN 37916
Also please call your local Congressman, Senator, Television Station, Newspaper and demand that the Truth Behind The Picture be told.
If you belong to a church, pro life group, etc. please tell them to do the same. We have to fight for this truth. The only way this will work is if these people are overwhelmed with thousands upon thousands of people that demand the truth. Please send the link to this Blog to everyone you know.
I have supported what I feel is a GOD-given mission to deliver the message the picture conveys, (the in utero child is a reactive human being at twenty-one weeks) by continuing to freelance as a photojournalist. Four months ago Tom Stanford (photo editor for the Tennessean Newspaper) told me that since I have become publicly Pro-Life The Tennessean Newspaper would not be hiring me as a freelancer any longer. They have been my main source of income for the last nine years.
Please visit the links on the Blogroll and read some of the stories that document these events.
Blessings,
Michael Clancy
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