MUSCATINE, Iowa — This is the last year Muscatine high school seniors Andrew Rauenbuehler and Hannah Flanders will be on hand to help organize activities for the Muscatine Right to Life organization, but the group will never be far from their hearts.

As Rauenbuehler finalizes his plans to move to Rome and answer his call to the Catholic priesthood, and Flanders looks forward to attending Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., they expressed great hopes for the organization that Rauenbuehler formed in 2006. Flanders has been the organization’s secretary.

They are pleased that one of the final activities they have helped organize will feature the photographer of a photograph that Rauenbuehler and Flanders say is a strong statement for the pro-life movement.

On Friday, May 15, photographer Michael Clancy will be in Muscatine to discuss the circumstances that led to him to capture the image of an unborn baby grasping a surgeon’s hand as he is being operated on for spina bifida while still in his mother’s womb.

Rauenbuehler said the photo led to a life-changing experience for Clancy and the Friday night presentation is designed to encourage and inspire others to consider when human life begins.

“I want to be able to look back and say our generation is the one that stopped abortion,” said Rauenbuehler.

Rauenbuehler, the son of Mark and Sharon Rauenbuehler, learned about Iowa Right to Life when he was 15 and began working to establish a Muscatine chapter soon afterward. Today, the local chapter has approximately 100 members, with 20 of them being very active, he said.

Rauenbuehler said his work to end abortion will be part of his life in the priesthood, a calling he first became aware of as a child.

“It matures throughout your whole life,” he said of the calling. “I’m ready to get started. When you know what you’re going to do, a few more years of high school seems stagnant.”

Rauenbuehler will join a Catholic community in Rome, where his cousins — Sister Mary Nicole and Brother Joe Nietzel already live.

He said he will strive to make others aware that the right to life does not stop at birth.

“Children also have a right to a good upbringing,” said Rauenbuehler, who added that supporting  adoption agencies and providing financial help for other programs that benefit children and youths is vital to meeting that goal.

The seed for Flanders’ dedication to pro-life movement was planted when she was a child and her parents, Joe and Joan Flanders, took her to pro-life rallies.

Flanders says she will also devote her life to a Christian calling. She has been taught at home by her parents, who used the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum created by a woman whose husband is one of the founders of Thomas Aquinas College. Flanders will be freshman this fall at the Catholic college in California.

“I would like to impact the pro-life movement and work in the Catholic environment as a career,” said Flanders.

“What we’re doing is really different than anyone else from our class,” said Rauenbuehler. “For a lot of seniors, the process is, ‘What kind of job am I going to do?’ With us, it’s what we’re called to.”

Details: What: A presentation by  photographer Michael Clancy. He took a photo that he says shows an unborn baby — during a surgical procedure to his mother’s womb — grasping the surgeon’s finger.

When: 7 p.m. Friday, May 15.

Where: Gannon Hall at  St. Mathias Church, 215 W. Eighth St.

Admission: Free to the public

For more information:

563-264-3709 or newspringtime@machlink.com