In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. From that point forward, over 63 million unborn Americans were aborted, occurred according to a 2022 report from the National Right to Life (NRLC) committee. And, pro-abortion activists, doctors, and media outlets began to refer to unborn babies as "fetuses," "embryos," and "clumps of cells" in order to justify the horrific act of abortion.
But, years before Roe v. Wade, one mainstream media outlet took a bold stance about when life begins.
In April 1965, Life Magazine published a first-of-its-kind piece titled “Drama of Life Before Birth.” On the cover was an 18-week-old fetus in the amniotic sac. The article included breathtaking images of the unborn from 3.5 weeks gestation through the third trimester, all captured by Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson.
In Life's write-up, the publication clearly asserted that life begins at conception, a far cry from today's rhetoric that unborn children are simply "clumps of cells":
The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment the mother’s egg cell is fertilized by one of the father’s sperm cells.
Life Magazine, 1965:
— Macy Petty (@macypetty0416) August 15, 2023
“The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment the mother’s egg cell is fertilized by one of the father’s sperm cells”
Media changes, the reality of preborn life doesn’t pic.twitter.com/VGMGIIREso
According to The Washington Post, eight million copies of the captivating issue were sold:
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Inside the magazine were portraits of the most ethereal quality, depicting beings never before seen by most eyes, and yet intimately familiar. At 61/2 weeks of gestation, an embryo displayed clearly visible hands. By the eight-week mark, a viewer gazing upon Mr. Nilsson’s photography could perform that cherished rite of delivery rooms and count 10 tiny toes. At 18 weeks, a fetus was captured sucking its thumb.
Mr. Nilsson used custom-designed equipment described by Life as “a specially built super wide-angle lens and a tiny flash beam at the end of a surgical scope.” But his photographs elicited amazement not at human technological achievement, but rather at the very fact — some said miracle — of human existence.
In the editor’s note included in Life's groundbreaking issue, it explained that Nilsson told the publication years prior that he was going to document – in color – the stages of human development in the womb:
Ten years ago a Swedish photographer named Lennart Nilsson told us that he was going to photograph in color the stages of human reproduction from fertilization to just before birth. It was impossible for us not to express a degree of skepticism about his chances of success, but this was lost on Nilsson. He simply said “When I’ve finished the story, I’ll bring it to you.” Lennart kept his promise. He flew into New York from Stockholm and brought us the strangely beautiful and scientifically unique color essay in this issue.
[...]
Nilsson has the patience and the passion for photographing plants and animals in their natural environment, and it is this passion which makes Nilsson’s work not only photographically exciting but scientifically valid.
“This is like the first look at the back side of the moon,” a leading Swedish gynecologist told Life in response to the photographs.
“As far as I know, in utero pictures such as Nilsson’s have never been taken before,” another doctor told the publication in an interview. “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.”
That same year, Nilsson published a book titled "A Child Is Born," which included his own photographs of unborn children. Millions of copies were sold. Throughout his life, Nilsson released several editions of this book.
"I am just a photographer who happened to be fascinated with mankind," he stated on his website before his death in 2017.
In 2014, the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute doubled-down that life begins at conception, contrary to what other left-leaning organizations say on the issue of abortion.
"The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications). Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos," the organization said in a brief.
