Were Lennart Nilsson's Iconic, World Famous Photos Of Fetuses In The Womb…Photographed In Glass Jars? Guess Who Says Yes? Sweden's Leading Newspaper, In A Profile Of His Archivist And Stepdaughter

Part 1 Of a 3 Part Series Exploring How Early Progressive Abortion Laws In Sweden Led To A Crisis Of How To Produce Research From The Aborted Fetuses. Lennart Nilsson Was Invited In To Document It.

The story I tell here is one that broke in May of 2024, at SVD newspaper, in Sweden by Kristina Lindh, titled: “The Truth About Lennart Nilsson’s Photographs.”

It was a story that broke in a kind of controlled demolition way in Sweden, and as far as I can tell, not at all anywhere else.

I first saw the story on the FB page of Bobbo Sundgren, when I wrote about his son’s death by Moderna shots, in June.

I remember being dumbstruck.

Bobbo had posted an article from SVD that revealed that the famous Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson, whose “A Child Is Born” embryo photos became an international sensation, had not, in fact, magically photographed gestating fetuses. Rather, Nilsson photographed dying and dead embryos, that had been removed by a special c-section like technique in a Sweden where abortion laws had recently been relaxed, and (anti-abortion) doctors wanted the matter documented. This was in the 1950s.

The post aborted fetuses were placed in glass vats, that were lit up from many angles, creating the iconic Nilsson photographs the entire world looked at as images of life, beauty, hope, and God’s creation.

Were none of them alive?

At best, some are within the last few moments of life, kept alive in the vats while Nilsson made his creations. It is believed he even manipulated the baby sucking its thumb.

Here is an outtake from the Wikipedia page for A Child Is Born:

”The images played an important role in debates about abortion and the beginning of human life.^[16] Nilsson himself declined to comment on the origins of some of the photographs' subjects, which in fact included many images of terminated and miscarried fetuses:^[5] all but one of the images that appeared in Life were of fetuses that had been surgically removed from the womb.^[15]”

That last line: “All but one of the images. that appeared in Life were of fetuses that had been surgically removed from the womb.”

Did we know this?

No—absolutely not.

I also question the “one.”

If you check the footnote to this bombshell sentence, you learn that The University Of Cambridge actually published something on the story all the way back in 2000. But it did not “detonate.” Why is Sweden coming clean now? That is a fascinating sub-story, captured by Kristina Lindh in SVD (translated below.)

I’ve had a long time now, to think about this story, which I pushed to the side countless times.

A writer has to think: “What story am I telling, and why?”

This one has many tentacles, which I intend to keep tracing, in future pieces.

It is, to use a tired phrase, mind blowing.

I was ‘ranting’ about it to a friend on the phone this morning, asking: “Is it just me or is this not a huge story?” I know my tendency to go hyperbolic, and certainly where Sweden is concerned. I wanted confirmation of the exclamation marks in my mind.

A Swedish friend barely batted an eyelid when I told him. “Jaha,” he said, laconically. But he’s on the inside, and hard to shock.

This morning, my other (non Swedish,) British friend said, after a long pause: “It’s kind of Satanic actually.”

We discussed what that might mean, “Satanic.” Not a word we would normally associate with Sweden.