A study by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust shows a survival rate of 42% for babies born at an age at which they may be legally aborted for social reasons.

The scientific paper is backed by two other sets of research that show a much higher proportion of premature babies now survive than did in 1990 when abortion law was last amended.

The dramatic improvement in the survival of extremely premature babies will be seized on to argue for a reduction in the limit of 24 weeks for abortions for non-medical reasons.

The upper limit was set at 24 weeks because the foetus was not considered to be viable — capable of life — before that age. At the time the national survival rate at 23 weeks was below 10%.

Fifteen years on, scientists argue that more sophisticated incubators and resuscitation equipment, and new drugs to “lubricate” the lungs have reduced the age of viability.

Dr Alan T Gibson, director of neonatal services at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, has charted the survival rate for babies born at 23 weeks over the past 15 years.

“Abortions are being carried out at a gestational age at which some hospitals report significant survival rates. I believe that is wrong,” he said.

The record of infants treated at the neonatal unit at University College hospital between 1996 and 2000 shows that eight out of 19 babies, or 42%, of those born at 23 weeks survived. At 24 weeks the proportion was 21 out of 29, or 72%.

Remarkably, 55% of babies born at 22 weeks survived but doctors at the unit point out that the numbers in this group were small, with five out of nine babies surviving.

A larger study of 1,036 babies by the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis found that, between 1996 and 2000, there was a survival rate of 66% for babies born at 23 weeks. The study, published in the medical journal Pediatrics last year, found that, over the same period, 81% of babies born at 24 weeks survived.

In the UK the generally accepted figure for survival at 23 weeks is just 11%. This is the statistic quoted in a recent consultation paper by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics into whether doctors should intervene to save the lives of very premature babies.

The figure is taken from a study by the EPICure group, based at Nottingham University. It traced 4,000 premature babies born in Britain and Ireland in 1995.

Researchers from the group concede that these figures are now out of date. Gibson, who is also one of EPICure’s lead researchers, says that 30% of babies born at 23 weeks and treated at his neonatal unit in Sheffield now survive.

Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “Babies of similar age that have the same chances of survival do not have equal rights when it comes to living. One can be aborted if inside the womb, the other will receive full neonatal care if outside it. This is not fair or right.”

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