The Story Behind The Picture

” In the hushed but crowded operating room where outsiders have gathered to watch a rare medical event - spinal surgery on a child still in his mother’s womb - a stool falls with a loud bang.

Shh, says, Joseph Bruner, the surgeon leading the operation. “You’ll wake the baby.”

This is an exact quote from the original USA Today article by the reporter, Robert Davis, published, Sept. 7th, 1999.

Samuel received no anesthesia directly for the procedure. What anesthesia he did receive was from his mother being under general anesthesia. Dr. Bruner has said many times, “Samuel was under anesthesia, he was not aware of what was going on.” As , …….. if he wasn’t under anesthesia he would be aware of what was going on at 21 weeks (in the womb).

As a journalist my job is to expose injustice and hope that that exposure will initiate social change.

“There is little debate about whether the child in utero is alive; the debate is over whether or not the child is a life worthy of protection.”

These are the words I heard Senator Sam Brownback speak, at the 2003 Senate Hearing, as I sat next to the child I had captured in my photograph reaching from his mother’s womb.

My struggle for the Truth behind my picture has been more difficult than I could ever have imagined. More than once, I found myself on the threshold of sanity, staring into the abyss. More than once I found myself on the verge of taking my own life. If I did not have GOD in my life I would not be writing this. But ……. my life is not mine to take. No one’s life is ours to take. Then we get back to the question posed by Senator Brownback, ” Is a child’s life worthy of protection?”

Sometimes I think I am dreaming, and I’m going to wake up any minute. Has the last eight years of my life been a screenplay, produced by Mel Gibson, worthy of a follow-up to the Passion of the Christ? Is it possible that the story of the unborn child that reached from his mother’s womb, and how the doctor lied, is The story that ignites a Rallying Cry that would result in the protection of all unborn children?

“Shh, ………. you’ll wake the baby.”

Michael C.

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.

The following is the sequence of events that have taken place since I received the assignment to photograph the miraculous surgical procedure to correct spina bifida in the womb.

1.  I walked into Dr. Joseph P. Bruner’s operating room as a (freelance) representative (photographer) for USA Today and I was assaulted by medical personnel in an apparent attempt to stop me from getting the picture of Samuel reaching from the womb.

2.  Life Magazine tried to purchase all rights to my picture of Samuel reaching out to keep it from ever being published. The act of this unborn child allowed me to scoop the cover story of Life Magazine’s Millenium Issue. (Dec. 1999)

3.  Matt Drudge tried to show the picture that was published in the November 1999 issue of “The National Enquirer” on his Fox TV Show and network censors refused to allow him to display the image.  Mr. Drudge walked off the set and that was the end of his television career.  Now he is the owner of “The Drudge Report”, a website that receives an average of 15 million visitors a day.

4.  The Tennessean Newspaper published the article titled, “The Picture That Went Around The World,” January 9th, 2000.  For this article Dr. Joseph Bruner told Tennessean reporter, Bill Snyder, he had taken Samuel’s hand out of the uterus and posed the picture for the photographer.  The headline on that issue’s front page was, “The Music City Miracle.”  That headline referred to the Tennessee Titans making the playoffs.  Dr. Joseph P. Bruner committed fraud on a global scale when he told media representatives from around the world, “the picture was not real, it was posed.”

5.  Newsweek published the picture in their June 2003 issue with the cover story, “Should A Fetus Have Rights?”  That issue was held up on the floor of the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate, to display the picture of Samuel reaching from the womb during the debates of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion.  Samuel, his family and I, were invited by President Bush to attend the signing into law of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion.  I was told the picture was very influencial in the passing of the Ban of Partial Birth Abortion into Law?

6.  September 25th 2003, I testified before a Senate Hearing, sitting next to the child I had captured in my photograph reaching from the womb.  Samuel was three years old.  I testified about the public reaction to the picture and Samuel told Senator Brownback, “they fixed my boo-boo.”

7.  April 2007, the TV Show “House” re-created the picture in an episode titled “Fetal Position.”

8.  August 19, 2007 will be 8 years that I have tried to tell my story.  Many people have emailed me and stated that it doesn’t matter what the doctor said about the picture, it speaks for itself.  It does matter ……… Samuel, as an unborn child made history when he reached from his mother’s womb.  The Earliest Human Interaction Ever Recorded!

9.  Eight years after the picture, Dr. Joseph P. Bruner is no longer involved in fetal surgery.  He was the pioneer of this procedure.  Bruner has lost his job at Vanderbilt and is running from the truth behind the picture.  When contacted by media, Bruner claims to be under a Gag Order and can make no comment regarding my picture or Samuel’s surgery.

This is how you can help and it may be the most important thing you have ever done.  Please send Dr. Bruner a letter or card of encouragement.  Tell him that you love him. That you are praying for him.  That you understand why he could never admit the unborn child he was performing experimental surgery on came out from under the anesthesia too soon. Please-please-please-be loving, and send your cards and letters to:

Dr. Joseph Bruner
Trustees Tower
501 19th St., #304
Knoxville, TN 37916

Also please call your local Congressman, Senator, Television Station, Newspaper and demand that the Truth Behind The Picture be told.

If you belong to a church, pro life group, etc. please tell them to do the same.  We have to fight for this truth.  The only way this will work is if these people are overwhelmed with thousands upon thousands of people that demand the truth.  Please send the link to this Blog to everyone you know.

I have supported what I feel is a GOD-given mission to deliver the message the picture conveys, (the in utero child is a reactive human being at twenty-one weeks) by continuing to freelance as a photojournalist.  Four months ago Tom Stanford (photo editor for the Tennessean Newspaper) told me that since I have become publicly Pro-Life The Tennessean Newspaper would not be hiring me as a freelancer any longer.  They have been my main source of income for the last nine years.

Please visit the links on the Blogroll and read some of the stories that document these events.

Blessings,

Michael Clancy