If the writer is still lurking, let me reassure you that the picture of the tiny hand grasping the surgeon's finger is legitimate and you can view it on UrbanLegends.Sort of. Unfortunately, the folks at http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/outrage/thehand.htm have started to EDITORIALIZE quite a bit in their "explanations" of Urban Legends, and taken some considerable liberties with how they define the "legend" that that are attempting to prove or debunk.
In THIS case, they say that the "legend" is:
Claim: The U.S. news media suppressed a story about an amazing in-the-womb fetal surgery....so that they can call it "FALSE."Status: False.
Check it out for yourself. It is very disappointing (to me) to see such a LONG (and largely irrelevant diatribe) posted there, but they DO eventually concede THESE facts:
"...The remarkable operation (and picture) described in the piece above (taken from an article in the 30 October 1999 issue of the Irish Independent)... ...describes surgery performed in the womb on a 21-week-old fetus to correct an occurrence of spina bifida...Bottom line:...This photograph was the center of a controversy in November 1999 when Matt Drudge walked off the set of his Fox News Channel program after network executives refused to allow him to display the picture during a segment about abortion. Drudge (an opponent of abortion) insisted he wanted to use the photograph to demonstrate a point about fetal development and intended to identify it correctly; Fox felt that his using the picture would have been misleading because it depicted a completely different medical procedure (emergency fetal surgery) and would therefore have been a misrepresentation. (This picture has been mislabelled on many Internet web sites as a photograph of an abortion in progress rather than a fetal surgery.)
Although this story and picture may not have been "shown on every television newscast and run in every newspaper in America," they were given widespread coverage here. The print version of the newspaper USA Today ran a lengthy article with photos (including the one shown above) about the surgery nearly two months before the Irish Independent piece cited above, and they ran a follow-up article when little Samuel was delivered by Caesarean section three months later. Additionally, a segment about a similar surgery was aired on the TV news program 20/20 in January 2000. This may not be "every television newscast and newspaper in America," but a prominent story in the USA's largest daily newspaper and a top-rated news program provide no small audience..."
If you get to define the "legend" - in this case as "not getting enough media coverage" - you can call just about ANYTHING "FALSE."