This picture of a 21-week fetus hand reaching up through an incision in its mother's uterus to
grab the finger of the surgeon who had just performed a life-saving procedure appeared in the
November 16 edition of The National Enquirer.
It should be "The Picture of the Year," or perhaps, "The Picture of the
Decade."
The 21-week-old unborn baby is named Samuel Alexander Armas, and is being operated on by a
surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if
removed from the 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. In the
procedure, a C-section removes the uterus and the doctor 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 foetus 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."
That picture should be shown on every television newscast and run in every newspaper in
America. It is a graphic reminder that growing in the womb of his or her mother is a baby. It is
not a "glob of tissue," or "product of conception." That pre-born baby is a
human being with all the emotions, will and personality of any human being. That picture says it
in a way that a thousand words cannot.
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 illness, it's about a little
person." That's what it's always been about. That's what the liberal elite have tried to get
us to forget. May this image jog our memories so that we will never forget.
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