Is “Baby Boy B” an “iconic photo”?
By Dave Andrusko
I happened across a fascinating piece on the Washington Post’s web page today on the topic of “Iconic Images” Here’s how they introduced the photo essay:
I hadn’t thought about it exactly in those terms before, but upon
examining the 17 photos, it made sense. For those of us who are older,
there are pictures that are both instantly recognizable and ones we
would likely all agree are “iconic”: the raising of the flag at Iwo
Jima; the death of the student at Kent State; the photo of Robert
Kennedy lying on the kitchen floor after he was fatally shot, just to
name three.
More recently, there were a few of the photos from 9/11 that we will never forget: Firefighters and military personnel draping a U.S. flag over the west wall of the Pentagon; firefighters raising a flag at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, for example.
(Interesting that one of the most “iconic” photos of all was not included: Three days after the attacks on September 11, President George W. Bush went to New York City where, using a bullhorn, he gave an inpromptu pep talk to rescue workers. I’m sure that was just an accident.)
This photo essay was prompted by the never-to-be forgotten picture of 78-year-old Bill Iffrig who “lies on the ground as police officers react to a second explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston.” That photo, by John Tiumacki, was on the frontpage of many, many newspapers and reproduced online everywhere.
I mention all this to end with this question. I wonder if “Baby Boy B” would qualify under the Post’s definition of “iconic”?
Okay, you ask, who is “Baby Boy B”? There are many photos that appear in the Grand Jury report that detailed the horrific conditions, the soul-sapping brutality that the Grand Jury said was at the core of Kermit Gosnell’s grisly trade. We have chosen to reprint only one—“Baby Boy B”
This photo does double-duty. First, it “depict[s] the personal effects of one” tragedy—“Baby Boy B” estimated to be about 28-weeks-old when he was alledegly aborted alive before a hole was drilled into his neck and his spinal cord slit. Second, it does capture the “broad battlefield”—what Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams precisely labeled Gosnell’s “baby charnel house.”
Likely the Post, pro-abortion to the teeth, might give it consideration? No. Then we might ask how does it really differ from one they did show (see below), described in these words: “Oklahoma City firefighter Chris Fields cradles the body of 1-year-old Baylee Almon, who was killed in the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”
Both give a face to unspeakable evil.
I happened across a fascinating piece on the Washington Post’s web page today on the topic of “Iconic Images” Here’s how they introduced the photo essay:
“Historically, the photographs we
tend to remember are not the ones that capture the whole of a tragedy — a
broad battlefield — but the ones that depict the personal effects of
one — the ones that evoke the specific emotions of a specific time. Here
is a look at some iconic images.”
More recently, there were a few of the photos from 9/11 that we will never forget: Firefighters and military personnel draping a U.S. flag over the west wall of the Pentagon; firefighters raising a flag at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, for example.
(Interesting that one of the most “iconic” photos of all was not included: Three days after the attacks on September 11, President George W. Bush went to New York City where, using a bullhorn, he gave an inpromptu pep talk to rescue workers. I’m sure that was just an accident.)
This photo essay was prompted by the never-to-be forgotten picture of 78-year-old Bill Iffrig who “lies on the ground as police officers react to a second explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston.” That photo, by John Tiumacki, was on the frontpage of many, many newspapers and reproduced online everywhere.
I mention all this to end with this question. I wonder if “Baby Boy B” would qualify under the Post’s definition of “iconic”?
Okay, you ask, who is “Baby Boy B”? There are many photos that appear in the Grand Jury report that detailed the horrific conditions, the soul-sapping brutality that the Grand Jury said was at the core of Kermit Gosnell’s grisly trade. We have chosen to reprint only one—“Baby Boy B”
This photo does double-duty. First, it “depict[s] the personal effects of one” tragedy—“Baby Boy B” estimated to be about 28-weeks-old when he was alledegly aborted alive before a hole was drilled into his neck and his spinal cord slit. Second, it does capture the “broad battlefield”—what Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams precisely labeled Gosnell’s “baby charnel house.”
Likely the Post, pro-abortion to the teeth, might give it consideration? No. Then we might ask how does it really differ from one they did show (see below), described in these words: “Oklahoma City firefighter Chris Fields cradles the body of 1-year-old Baylee Almon, who was killed in the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”
Both give a face to unspeakable evil.
“Baby Boy B,” with slit neck.
Oklahoma
City firefighter Chris Fields cradles the body of 1-year-old Baylee
Almon, who was killed in the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City. (Charles Porter, AP)
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