A report in the Daily Mail in March claimed that, in 2005 alone, 66 babies survived termination to be born alive.
The Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe has been asked to act ‘in order to guarantee that foetuses who survive abortions are not deprived of the medical treatment that they are entitled to – as human persons born alive – according to the European Convention on Human Rights’.
A UK 2007 Perinatal Mortality report noted that 16 babies were born at 22 weeks’ gestation or later and death occurred between one minute and four hours 30 minutes after birth. Dates for later years have had the data excluded.
Prohibition
Norway decided at the beginning of January to prohibit abortion completely after 22 weeks, the threshold of viability outside the uterus as determined by the World Health Organisation, due to some babies being born alive after an abortion.
Someone’s keeping quiet
However given that abortion is legal up until 24 weeks in Britain, it seems inconceivable that babies are not still being born alive after abortion here. But clearly whoever knows the facts is keeping quiet. Perhaps someone should ask some questions in the Westminster parliament too.
