Letter to the Editor

Clancy photograph

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Dear Editor,

On Wednesday, March 29, I attended Michael Clancy's presentation of the controversial photograph at the Fox Theatre, which caught a snapshot (during an emergency surgery) of the hand of a fetus reaching out from the woman's womb, grasping with its 21-week-0ld hand, the hand of the surgeon.

His personal story of his childhood as well as of his career as a photographer were fascinating. Because of the controversial nature of his photograph, Michael Clancy has been blacklisted; no magazine will hire him, and the most interesting thing of all is that "Life Magazine" tried to buy the right to the photograph so that they could kill it.

To me, the even more interesting thing about the presentation was the showing of a video clip of Sen. Brownbeck's hearing about this controversy where a medical doctor referred to this fetus (which we only saw the grasping hand) as a person. I was definitely impressed because this doctor has to be in the minority; most scientists, many doctors, abortion providers and innocent young girls who find themselves pregnant are easily convinced that a fetus is nothing but a conglomeration of tissues, or more starkly a blob, and a baby is not a baby, a human person, until a woman gives birth.

The problem with this modern heresy is that society forgets that we were all conceived by our parents and that at that moment of conception there were three parties involved, the male and female, who with their limited power, gave rise to our individuality (height, color of hair, eyes etc., all that we see when we look at each other.)

And so we have control over matter. But what about the soul, that second part of our make-up? After all, we are made up of body and soul, and as individuals, we are nothing but matter (which could be wiped out at any minute), but our person comes from our soul and that part of us cannot be wiped out by anything or anyone, it it immortal. Now I wonder Who that third person was at the moment of my conception Who had the power to create my soul, from which I get my personhood as opposed to the make-up of my matter (from my parents) which gives me my individualhood? I may be in the minority, but it seems to me that I got to be a person at the moment of my conception.

Sincerely,

J.G. McHale,

McCook

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  • http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519181,00.html

    "Bruner, who could not be reached for comment, has told reporters that Samuel and his mother were under anesthesia and could not move. In a Jan. 9, 2000, article in The Tennessean, he said he pulled Samuel's hand out of the uterus, further complicating the debate surrounding the photograph."

    Apparently, the little hand didn't reach up. The doctor grab it and pulled it out. Either way, it's a beautiful story.

    -- Posted by FNLYHOME on Wed, May 6, 2009, at 2:52 PM
  • Mr.,Mrs, or Ms. McHale what then would you make of people who believe in the widely distributed notion, especially in central and northern Asia and Indonesia, that an individual's life and personality are made up of a complex set of psychic interrelations. In some traditions the various souls are identified with the separate organs of the body; in others they are related to character traits. Each of the different souls making up a single individual has a different destiny after death. Among many northern Asian peoples, for example, one soul remains with the corpse, one soul descends to the underworld, and one soul ascends to the heavens.

    -- Posted by davis_x_machina on Fri, May 8, 2009, at 2:02 PM
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