Baby grabbing Dr's hand from the womb is now 9 years old and is thankful to God that he was in that picture

"It's just a miracle picture, a miracle moment," Clancy told FOXNews.com. "It shows the earliest human interaction ever recorded."

The baby in the picture to the left is now 9 years old. Fox News recently reported and don't miss YouTube of House MD episode below:

""When I see that picture, the first thing I think of is how special and lucky I am to have God use me that way," Samuel told FOXNews.com. "I feel very thankful that I was in that picture."

"It's very important to me," Samuel told Fox News. "A lot of babies would've lost their lives if that didn't happen."

On Aug. 19, 1999, photographer Michael Clancy shot the "Fetal Hand Grasp" — his picture of a 21-week-old fetus grasping a doctor's finger during innovative surgery to correct spina bifida. Nearly four months later, on Dec. 2, Samuel Armas was "born famous."

The photo, which first appeared in USA Today on Sept. 7, 1999, quickly spread across the globe as proof of development in the womb and was later cited during congressional debates on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which passed in 2000.

"It's just a miracle picture, a miracle moment," Clancy told FOXNews.com. "It shows the earliest human interaction ever recorded."

Samuel, now 9 and living in Villa Rica, Ga., said the photo likely gave countless "babies their right to live" and forced many others to debate their beliefs on abortion, something he's proud of."



LifeNews.com reports what the mother said and the once pro-abort photographer of this event now pro-life speaker.

"He identifies it more in terms of a pro-life message more than anything," she said. "This photo happened and God used it to show people that this baby in mom's tummy is alive. He's pleased that his photo conveyed that message."

Michael Clancy, the photographer who took the now-famous picture, told Fox News he supported legal abortion before the picture and now he makes a living sharing the story with pro-life groups.

"And that's what I'm going to do, keep telling this story," he said. "It can change people's hearts. What started off as an assignment turned into a responsibility to keep telling the story behind it."

Here is an interesting video of a House MD episode probably inspired in part by the real story.


On Michael Clancy's blog he writes:

"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."-Emphasis is Michael's own. Glory be to God.

Here is a page of upcoming events where he will be speaking at.

Mrs. Clinton Can’t Defend Patron Saint of Planned Parenthood

By Mona Charen, National Review Online

Appearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was confronted in a way she probably wasn’t expecting. Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) asked the secretary to account for her comments the previous month, when she accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously,” Secretary Clinton had said in March, “her courage, her tenacity, her vision . . . And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her.”

I’m not sure what it means to “take on archetypes” (American Heritage Dictionary: “An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype”). Perhaps she meant stereotypes. But it is worth pausing to consider, as Representative Smith did, that the Planned Parenthood organization (of which Sanger’s American Birth Control League was the predecessor) and the secretary of state continue to regard Margaret Sanger as an (if you will) archetypal modern feminist.
Read the FULL TEXT of Rep Chris Smith's speech to Congress here

Mrs. Sanger was certainly a birth-control pioneer. But when you examine the totality of Mrs. Sanger’s views, you’d think modern feminists would blanch — at least a little. Margaret Sanger was a most thoroughgoing racist. “Eugenics,” she wrote, “is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems.” Here, from her book What Every Girl Should Know, is an example of her thoughts on human development:

In all fish and reptiles where there is no great brain development, there is also no conscious sexual control. The lower down in the scale of human development we go the less sexual control we find. It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets.

In his book Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg quotes Sanger as describing her life’s work this way: “More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue of birth control.”

Representative Smith asked Secretary Clinton to respond to Mrs. Sanger’s views about the “deterioration in the human stock” and “the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents, and dependents.” As Goldberg has observed, conservatives are always asked to “own” their intellectual forebears and to disavow that which requires disavowal. Yet liberals skate by without having to distance themselves from the dreadful opinions and writings of their heroes and heroines.

The secretary did not respond directly. She chose not to defend Margaret Sanger at all. Instead, she spoke of the suffering women that she had seen around the world. “I’ve been in hospitals in Brazil where half the women were enthusiastically and joyfully greeting new babies and the other half were fighting for their lives against botched abortions. I’ve been in African countries where 12- and 13-year-old girls are bearing children.” I’ve asked the State Department to identify the Brazilian hospital to which Mrs. Clinton was referring. They have yet to get back to me. As for children bearing children in Africa — obviously, birth control is necessary in poor countries, but is she really suggesting that cultures abusive enough to permit the marriage of very young girls would be open to providing them with birth control? It’s like suggesting that the solution to wife beating is to get men to wear boxing gloves.

Secretary Clinton then, in good Obamanista fashion, offered a gratuitous swipe at the Bush administration. “During my time as first lady I helped to create the Campaign Against Teenage Pregnancy . . . and . . . the rate of teen pregnancy went down. I’m sad to report that after an administration of eight years that undid so much of the good work, the rate of teenage pregnancy is going up.”

Politicians always simplify, but this is truly ludicrous. Teen pregnancy down under the Clintons but then up under Bush? Sorry, the statistics do not reflect that. According to the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), teen pregnancy reached an all-time high in 1988 and 1989 and began trending down thereafter, reaching its lowest recent point in 2005 — past the midpoint of the Bush years. It has been going up since then.

Part of Mrs. Clinton’s solution is to promote abortion, which she calls “women’s reproductive health care.” Anyone for a small irony? Margaret Sanger hated abortion and called abortionists “blood sucking men with M.D. after their names.” Perhaps someone can ask Secretary Clinton about that at the next hearing.
© 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Click here for related story from LifeSite News
"Secretary Clinton "In Awe" of Racist Eugenicist Margaret Sanger"

Voice YOUR concern to Rome: Archbishop Wuerl Refuses to Deny Communion to Pro-Abortion Speaker Pelosi

Insists Canon 915 not to be used as Pope Benedict and Archbishop Burke have insisted

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. has stated that he would not deny Holy Communion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most notoriously pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians in the U.S., because he says historically "the Church just didn't use Communion" as a "weapon."

In an interview published in a Politics Daily article today, Bishop Wuerl said he disagreed with refraining from giving communion to manifestly pro-abortion politicians, which was equated with "Communion wielded as a weapon." "That's the new way now to make your point," said Wuerl.

"We never - the Church just didn't use Communion this way. It wasn't a part of the way we do things, and it wasn't a way we convinced Catholic politicians to appropriate the faith and live it and apply it; the challenge has always been to convince people.'' On the other hand, sanctioning Catholics tends to alienate them, he said.

Wuerl said he will make no effort to keep Speaker Pelosi from receiving Communion, saying first "there's a question about whether this canon [915] was ever intended to be used'' to correct Catholics in grave error.

Canon 915 states: "Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion."

"I stand with the great majority of American bishops and bishops around the world in saying this canon was never intended to be used this way," said Wuerl.

Wuerl also said that he thought "we've been making progress" in conveying the pro-life message to the Democratic Party, but "There was just a setback with the distraction of Communion."

(To read Archbishop Wuerl's interview for Politics Daily: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/05/06/archbishop-wuerl-why-i-won-t-deny-pelosi...)

Wuerl's statements appear to contradict a 2004 statement by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger titled "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion," in which Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, stated: "Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church's teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist."

With quotations from a 2002 declaration of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Ratzinger continues: "When 'these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,' and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, 'the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it'.

"This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty," Ratzinger wrote. "Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgement on the person's subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person's public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin."

In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in February, Archbishop Raymond Burke, the head of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, agreed with Ratzinger's assertion that bishops have no choice but to withhold communion from manifestly pro-abortion politicians. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09020402.html)



Burke told LSN: "I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it [denying communion to pro-abortion politicians]. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

"The Church's law is very clear," said Burke. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [canon law] doesn't say that the bishop shall decide this. It's an absolute."

Burke also called "nonsense" the idea that the Church's law "makes the Communion rail a battleground," and said the opposite was true: not enforcing Canon 915 frequently results in using Communion unto political advantage.

Failing to enforce Canon 915, said Burke, means pro-abortion politicians - such as Sen. John Kerry, who published several photographs of himself receiving Communion from Papal representatives - are able to send a message to Catholic voters that they are in good standing with the Church despite supporting abortion, which the Church considers an intrinsic evil.

"What are they doing? They're using the Eucharist as a political tool," said Burke.

To express concern:

Congregation for Bishops
Giovanni Battista Re, Cardinal, Prefect
Palazzo della Congregazioni,
00193 Roma,
Piazza Pio XII, 10
Phone: 06.69.88.42.17
Fax: 06.69.88.53.03

See related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09020402.html
Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/050419a.html

Washington D.C. Taxpayers to Pay for Abortions: Obama Move on Abortion Funds Riles Both Sides

The Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan and Gary Emerling | Friday, May 8, 2009

President Obama called for overturning a decade-old ban on publicly funded abortions in the District as part of his budget proposal Thursday, but did not overturn the national ban on federal funding, thus angering advocacy groups on both sides of the volatile issue.

Under his proposal, the District for the first time in more than a decade would be allowed to pay for abortions with the money it raises from its own taxpayers.

"This is just the most recent in a long line of actions by President Obama to placate the abortion industry actions that fail to match his words with regard to abortion policy," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life women's group.

Still, Mr. Obama's budget would leave in place the ban on using federal taxpayer money to pay for most abortions in the District or anywhere else in the nation a proposal pro-choice groups had hoped he would make in his first budget submission.

"For millions of women, federal programs are their only means of getting health care," said Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup. "Abortion is the only medically necessary health service excluded from Medicaid coverage. Failure to provide that service a service that only women need is discrimination."

The abortion language is one of a host of tough policy decisions Mr. Obama had to face as he released details of his $3.5 trillion budget for fiscal 2010. Among other issues, he proposes to cut funding for abstinence-only education programs, to change plans for how the U.S. will handle nuclear waste, and to include no money for further construction on the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

Seeking to regain credibility on controlling spending, Mr. Obama also unveiled $17 billion in spending cuts though many of his proposed cuts are unlikely to survive the congressional process.

"At this moment, at this difficult time for our nation, we can't accept business as usual," Mr. Obama said.

The D.C. abortion language is a departure from past restrictions imposed by Congress in its constitutional role overseeing the District; states are freer to do as they will with their taxpayer money, including possibly funding abortions. The existing law over the District bars any funds from being spent on abortions in the District, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life.

"It's bringing our funding in line with the other states, the way they've been funded previously," said Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Health. "He removed the restrictions for local dollars."


The White House said that was the intent.

"As a general rule, the president believes that states and localities should have the freedom to make this kind of funding decision at the local level," said spokesman Reid Cherlin.

But that change, like all the other proposals in Mr. Obama's budget, will have to be approved by Congress, and pro-life groups promised a fight.

"Any member of Congress who votes for a bill that contains the White House proposal is, in reality, voting for tax-funded abortion on demand with congressionally appropriated funds," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director with the National Right to Life Committee.

The prohibition on local dollars was enacted in 1988 during the Reagan presidency, scrapped in 1993 during the first year of the Clinton administration, and reinstated in 1995 when Republicans gained control of Congress.

During the next few years, officials continued spending city money to pay for abortions, but said they did not realize they were violating the law.

Meanwhile, pro-choice groups said they had hoped Mr. Obama would go further in ending nationwide restrictions on federal spending for abortion, such as the Hyde Amendment, named for former Rep. Henry Hyde, that generally prohibits federal funding for abortions.

Pro-choice advocates said President Clinton, in his budget submissions, used to call for an end to the policy, although the Republican-controlled Congress never went along.

Pro-choice groups said they will now look to the Democratic majorities in Congress to overrule Mr. Obama and end the federal restrictions.

A statement from Ms. Northup's group said it was "calling on Congress to step up and eliminate all restrictions on abortion funding, which would demonstrate much needed U.S. leadership and commitment to the human rights principles at the heart of reproductive rights."

Mr. Obama ran as a pro-choice candidate but said he would like to find ways to reduce the number of abortions. At a press conference marking 100 days in office last week he repeated his commitment to that goal, and also said the Freedom of Choice Act, which would remove state restrictions on abortion, is "not my highest legislative priority."

"I believe that women should have the right to choose, but I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that's where I'm going to focus," he said.

He also drew praise from pro-choice groups for his move to cut abstinence-only education programs. They pointed to studies showing the abstinence programs were not effective in reducing pregnancy rates.

But LeAnna Benn, one of the pioneers of abstinence education, said cutting the programs "silence[s] the voice of abstinence for millions of teens" and will put many more people out of work across the country.

Ironically, Mrs. Benn, founder of Teen-Aid in Spokane, Wash., added, "These cuts come on the National Day of Prayer."

Cheryl Wetzstein and Jon Ward contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

Pro-abortion Arguments:Fatal Flaws Part 1

Stephen Napier Ph.D.
National Catholic Bioethics Center
To read Part 2 in this series click here

When one peruses the secular literature on bioethics, one often comes across various “arguments” defending embryonic destructive research. The arguments coming up most often are (a) the twinning argument, (b) the dicephalic twin case (c) the brain transplant example, and (d) the embryo rescue case. I find none of these arguments persuasive. The National Catholic Bioethics Center has the practice of writing postings to educate and inform the faithful. This is a first in a series of postings addressing each of these arguments and pointing out their fatal flaws. This first part addresses the fatal flaws behind the embryo rescue case.

The embryo rescue case runs something like this: suppose an IVF clinic catches on fire. You have the choice to save a cryo-preserved embryo or a six-year old child. You only have time to save one. Which one do you choose? Most people would be inclined to save the child. Proponents of embryo destructive research then conclude that the embryo does not have the “moral status” or “moral worth” equal to that of a child, for otherwise we would not be so clearly inclined to save the child. Proponents further conclude that it is permissible then to destroy embryos for research purposes.

What just happened? Even those unfamiliar with philosophical discourse or with the professional study of logic will likely sense a “jump” in reasoning. Logicians call missing premises “enthymemes.” We can uncover the enthymeme in the embryo rescue argument by clarifying its premises and conclusions. The first premise is a statement of our intuitions on the rescue case:



1): Our intuitions tell us to save the child (all else being equal).
Now to get the conclusion that the embryo lacks the same moral worth as the child, we need to import the following premise:

2): If our intuitions tell us to save the child instead of the embryo, then the embryo lacks the same moral worth as the child.
From (1) and (2), it would follow that,

3): The embryo lacks the same moral worth as the child.
But the argument is not done yet. The end conclusion is that it is permissible to destroy the embryo for research purposes. And to get that conclusion, one needs to import yet another premise, according to which,

4): If an entity E (the embryo in this case) does not have equal moral status as another entity A (the child), then it is permissible to kill E for research purposes.
And once (4) is clearly articulated, the proponent of the embryo rescue argument can then draw the conclusion,

5): It is permissible to kill the embryo for research purposes.


Now this argument is ridiculously fallacious. At best, it would only be persuasive to someone already committed to a view of the embryo as lacking any natural right to life. Cashing in on this assessment though, requires some technical comment.

Let’s grant premise (1), since it is simply a statement of fact about our intuitions regarding whom we would save (all else being equal). Let us also grant the conclusions (3) and (5). That leaves (2) and (4) open to dispute. Let me focus on premise (2) for the moment. Premise (2) says, basically, that if our intuitions tell us to save x instead of y, then y does not have equal moral worth as x (x and y are variables or ‘stand-ins’ for different human beings). Now consider a counter-example. Suppose x in this case is an embryo that is yours. That is, suppose you and your spouse underwent an IVF procedure (just suppose) and the embryo you had the opportunity to save was your own. And next, suppose that instead of a child, you had the choice to save either your own embryo, or someone else’s embryo. It seems to me most of us would choose our own every time hoping to have an opportunity to implant the embryo and subsequently rear our own child. But given premise (2), your embryo has greater moral worth than the other embryo. But this is an odd result, for if moral worth means anything, it is at least a property of the embryo and not a property of your interests or desires. That is, we do not impute worth, but rather we recognize worth. Therefore, the moral worth of the two embryos should be equivalent since they are similar except for the fact that one is related to the rescuer and the other is not. It is certainly hard to see how this different relation affects the embryos’ intrinsic moral worth. So, our intuitions in this latter case tell us to save our own over someone else’s and yet both embryos are equivalent in terms of moral worth. But that is not what premise (2) says. Therefore, premise 2 is false. The lesson learned is that whom one chooses to save does not tell us anything about the moral worth of the person saved. This is no more apparent than in reasoning about pandemic-flu scenarios. Many state and hospital protocols concerning responses to a pandemic flu outbreak specify a triage or order of treatment preference. But no one would say that those citizens that end up further down the list lack moral worth. Therefore, premise (2) is not only false, but patently so.

What about premise (4)? Premise (4) highlights even more egregious errors than premise (2). Consider the burning building scenario again. We have the choice between saving the child or saving a frozen embryo. We have the intuition to save the child. Now why do we have this intuition? One plausible answer is that one has an obligation to prevent the unjust suffering of others – so long as there is not a corresponding grave threat on the rescuer’s life. Since death by fire is intensely painful, one has a grave obligation to save the child who is a sentient person capable of feeling the excruciating pain of being burnt. The more grave the unjust suffering, the more grave the obligation to prevent it. So of course we would choose to save the child, because the child can feel the pain of being burnt whereas the embryo cannot. Our obligations to save, then, attach to the child, not the embryo – all else being equal. However, having the obligation to prevent the unjust suffering of others, does not in any way entail that one does not have an obligation not to kill an embryo. Eliminating the triple negatives, it would be clearer to say that having an obligation to prevent the suffering of others does not entail that it is permissible to kill an embryo. Conversely, an obligation not to kill an embryo is certainly consistent with having an obligation to prevent the unjust suffering of others. A duty to prevent the suffering of x (which explains our intuitions outlined in (1)), does not say anything about whether it is permissible to kill y (which is the conclusion the embryo rescue argument wishes to draw from (1)). To summarize: that we have the intuition described in premise (1) is best explained by our obligations to prevent the unjust suffering of others. One cannot infer from this obligation a permission to kill those who do not suffer. Such an inference is patently fallacious.

Of course, the way to avoid this fallacious inference is to explain one’s intuitions outlined in (1) differently. One may explain such an intuition as being rooted in a belief that the embryo lacks moral worth because he or she lacks developmental maturity. The child is more mature and therefore bears greater moral worth. Therefore, the intuition outlined in (1) is based on a belief that one’s moral worth increases as one develops. But that is one conclusion drawn from the case! That is, if one already believes that embryos lack moral worth compared with a more well developed child, then of course the embryo rescue argument will be persuasive. But as to its task of independently motivating a view that the embryo may be killed, it is completely inert.

An additional objection to premise (4) is that it too, just like premise (2), commits an invalid inference. Premise (4) basically tells us that if y does not have moral worth equal to that of x, then it is permissible to kill y. But clearly, not having equal moral worth does not entail a permission to kill. The entity y (in this case the embryo) may bear enough moral worth to ground an obligation not to kill y. What the rescue argument fails to show is that the embryo lacks so much moral worth as to make it permissible to kill the embryo. (The objection to the argument assumes that the embryo does not have the moral worth equivalent to that of a child. I certainly do not think this myself. I am merely trying to show how bad the rescue argument is by granting all of its key claims and showing that it is still fallacious.) The most the rescue argument shows is that it is permissible to forego saving the embryo given the exclusive choice between child and embryo with all else being equal! Not much else can be derived from it.

The basic lesson learned from this critique is that the embryo rescue argument fatuously ignores a crucial difference between the circumstances surrounding one’s choice of whom to save in a burning building scenario, and the circumstances surrounding embryonic destructive research. The argument wishes to infer from whom we choose to save to whom we may intentionally kill. But our basic moral obligations governing whom we save are certainly different from our moral obligations not to kill. Inferring one from the other commits a categorical error and therefore, the argument is logically invalid.

©2009. The National Catholic Bioethics Center. Philadelphia, PA