Babies born at 22 weeks ‘now likely to survive’

DOCTORS should intervene to help premature babies born before the legal abortion limit survive, an expert claims.

John Lantos, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri, will tell a Scottish conference that babies born at 22 weeks now have a survival rate of up to 61 per cent.

The legal abortion limit in the UK is 24 weeks. Babies born at an earlier stage are managed on a case-by-case basis as many are considered unlikely to live or at risk of lifelong disability.

Professor Lantos will tell the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health conference in Glasgow tomorrow that the prospects of the tiniest babies are improving, raising questions about the abortion limit.

He said: ‘The 24-week viability limit is not a magical number. It was the limit of viability 30 years ago. If that has changed, then in my opinion, that ought to limit the gestational age of abortion.’

A spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in Scotland said: ‘The fact that the babies can survive before the current abortion time-limit exposes the cruel nature of our abortion law.’