by?Sarah Ackley
Hipocrite Reader?ISSUE 14 | INNOCENCE | MAR 2012
The stunning fetal images by photographer?Lennart Nilsson, first published in the?April 3, 1965 issue?of?Life, have become iconic in the anti-abortion movement. According to Life Site News, Nilsson is credited with?taking??photographs that the pro-life movement has found priceless: the earliest and most compelling visual images that give intimate detail and clarity to the humanity of unborn children in the womb.? Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, an anti-abortion advocacy organization, has said, ?Images such as those created by Lennart Nilsson absolutely reaffirm the humanity of unborn persons, which is why they are so unpopular with pro-abortion forces.?
Nilsson certainly wasn?t the first to photograph the fetus. A number of photographs of embryos and fetuses appeared in the?July 3, 1950 issue?of?Life?magazine, but Nilsson was thought to be the first to photograph live fetuses in the uterus. The editor?s note of the 1965 issue of?Lifereads,
Nilsson certainly wasn?t the first to photograph the fetus. A number of photographs of embryos and fetuses appeared in the?July 3, 1950 issue?of?Life?magazine, but Nilsson was thought to be the first to photograph live fetuses in the uterus. The editor?s note of the 1965 issue of?Lifereads,
The opening picture in Nilsson’s essay, a live baby inside the womb, is a historic and extraordinary photographic achievement… [A] doctor said, ?As far as I know, in utero pictures such as Nilsson’s have never been taken before. When you take living tissue in its living state and view it in its natural surroundings you can see things you can’t see afterward. Being able to view the fetus inside the uterus, and being able to note its circulatory details, is rather sensational from our point of view.?