Posted on 10/15/2002 6:37:29 PM PDT by M. Peach
The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by a surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.
During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. During the surgery on little Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed, hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity.
The editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope." The text explaining the picture begins, "The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life." Little Samuel's mother said they "wept for days" when they saw the picture.
She said, "The photo reminds us my pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person." "The Hand" of the fetus. You can see the actual picture, and it is awesome...incredible. And hey, pass it on. The world needs to see this one.
Then I met a wonderful women, fell in love, got married, and she became pregnant. I was relatively old to have a firstborn (36). The first ultrasound of my son was taken when he was just a smidgen of a guy (maybe 8 weeks old-like I said I'm a guy so don't hold me to exact dates). I was forever changed from that point on. He was so small and helpless and every bit human. My initial feelings of elation turned to horror at all the abortions that are being performed and shame at not having realized this before.
I may not go as far as others on this forum who believe life starts at conception for religious reasons. My view is simply based on when the little angels become recognizable. I don't know when that is, maybe 4 weeks. From what I understand a girl would know if she's pregnant within 4 weeks. If she decides to have an abortion maybe she should have the right to do so while it's still just a bunch of cells. Anything beyond that is murder.
Partial birth abortion is ten times as horrific as these sniper shootings and the doctors who perform them should be eviscerated IMHO.
That is so true. I worked for five years managing a group home for developmentally disabled adults. These are the folks who really do need help, folks dealt a real bad hand from birth. I worked with a lady who had Spina Bifida, seizure disorder, and severe mental retardation. But let me tell you, she was a wonderful woman, with a unique personality, a great sense of humor, a great zest for life, a loving mother and father. I learned so much from her. I learned how much I have to be thankful for. Anyway, when I see stories like this, I often think of her, and the others that I met, who might someday be considered too "defective" or not viable, or whatever. That is why the real issue of all this really is the value of human life.
PS-I am planning on going back to that work again.
That's the heart of it.
I know many conservatives have the position that the law should be no abortion period, but I don't think thats feasible. SCOTUS ruled that it was against the Constitution (the Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves). The only way to undo that is pass an Amendment to the Constitution or get SCOTUS to overturn their decision. Since neither is likely to happen anytime soon, I would suggest that we steal a page out of the liberals playbook and make incremental improvements. Let's all get on the same page and win one fight at a time. If we're divided nothing is going to be achieved.
The first fight should be Partial Birth Abortion. Then get it down to a trimester, etc...
Ask any woman who has struggled to conceive and she will tell you that "barely pregnant" is VERY pregnant in her mind. From the moment she even THINKS she might be pregnant, it is already a baby in her hopes, her dreams, her heart. She knows those cells could become her child, if nothing goes wrong.
One reason women panic when they discover they have become pregnant and don't want to be is that knowledge that without killing it, that little bunch of dividing cells will inevitably and predictably grow into a baby.
I think God grants a woman several months of pregnancy in part to allow her time to prepare herself for motherhood. A woman makes a mistake if she believes these several months are to give her time to decide whether or not she WANTS that baby and to get rid of it if she so chooses.
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