Published: September 22, 2008 08:00 pm      

Photographer discusses life-changing shot

Photo at center of anti-abortion benefit dinner

ACME -- It is an image that grabbed the attention of pro-lifers everywhere, just as the tiny fingers of the unborn child in the photograph clutched the finger of the surgeon who stood over his pregnant mother.

Freelance photojournalist Michael Clancy snapped the photograph and captured an image that inspires anti-abortion advocates and changed his personal politics.

He was the keynote speaker Monday night at the 21st annual Grand Traverse Area Right to Life benefit dinner at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa in Acme.

"I went on assignment and I witnessed something that changed me," Clancy said.

Clancy told the crowd of near 800 that he had no idea his 1999 photograph would have the lasting effect that it did: to show how advanced a half-term fetus is inside the mother's womb.

"At half term, an in-utero child is a reactive human being. I captured it for the world to see," Clancy said.

Clancy told the crowd how he was hired by USA Today to photograph a corrective surgery on an unborn child with spina bifida at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In the middle of the procedure, the fetus' arm thrust out of the surgical opening and then pulled back until just the tiny hand showed, he said.

When the surgeon lifted the hand, it squeezed the doctor's finger and held firm, Clancy said.

"This is God's picture," Clancy said.

Controversy erupted over the image when the surgeon later said he'd posed the photo, something that cost Clancy his journalistic integrity and career, he said.

Since then, he's become a pro-life advocate, a complete turnaround from his personal pro-choice beliefs before the photograph.

Dave Scerbak, of Traverse City, was in the audience to support the cause, he said.

"Personally, it's not something I'm comfortable with. I feel abortion is wrong. It would be good to find other solutions," he said.

Janice Walters, of Interlochen, attended with her mother, Elly Walters of Grawn. They don't agree on abortion.

"I'm pro-choice. It's the right to choose and it's the right to choose your opinion. I have a daughter and I chose it," Janice Walters said. However, Elly Walters believes in abstinence before marriage and doesn't think we have to "kill babies," she said.