The World of Grandpa Don

A friend and fellow member of St Julie parish forwarded an email with the following story.

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. Pass it on. The world needs to see this one!!

(Click on thumbnail)

Many claim that life does not begin until the birth of a child, that at that moment when the baby takes a first breath of air it becomes a human being. Before that moment it is tissue without a life of it's own.

I do not know how one could believe that after seeing this photo and reading the story that goes with it. 

I think that is a belief of convenience for those who want to justify the desire to have a choice in giving birth to a child or terminating the child's existence. 

The fact is that we do not know if there even is a scientific answer to the question of when life begins. Our church teaches that the new life begins at the time of conception. When cells join and begin to divide to form a new unique human, life begins. And that makes sense to me. For if after that time, we remove or destroy those cells, we have effectively prevented the full formation of a person. Those cells, although dependent on the mother for protection and nourishment are developing independent of the mother. The fetus's development is based on something new, the combined  genes of both parents.  

In the situation described in this story and as shown in the photo, the mother did not cause the baby to grasp the doctor's finger. It was an independent action. I do not claim that it was a conscious decision by the baby. But it was an instinctive reaction by the child and was beyond the control of his mother. 

His development, both in the womb and after birth is a matter of degree and totally dependant on his mother, or after birth, someone else if necessary. His existence is not a matter of degree. He exists or he doesn't.