London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new study from Britain involving an analysis of 20 years of data covering 10 hospitals finds that one baby in 30 survives an abortion attempt. The survey sheds more light on how many abortions are unsuccessful and the kind of care medical facilities should offer babies who survive botched abortions.

Many of the babies who survived the failed abortions were born at 20-24 weeks into the pregnancy at West Midlands hospitals. That's just before and right at the point of viability.

The study, published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, found that some of the babies survived but others lived only for a few hours after the failed abortion.

About 190,000 abortions take place in England annually involving about a quarter of all pregnancies and almost always involving a healthy baby. Abortions are allowed up to the 24th week of pregnancy there.

This particular study covered the outcomes of 3,189 abortions done between 1994 and 2005 specifically because the baby had some sort of disability. Some 102 of the babies targeted by the abortions were not killed in the abortion procedure.

Julia Millington of the pro-life group Alive and Kicking Campaign told LifeNews.com that the survival rates were likely seen in other places in England.

"If 102 out of 3,189 babies aborted for reasons of impairment are born alive, then how many healthy babies must be surviving?" she said.

"It is difficult to comprehend the number of babies, throughout the country, left fighting for their lives," Millington added, saying that hospitals should have policies to care for them. "The survival instinct of these premature babies is very strong but without proper neonatal care they stand no chance at all."

But Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service abortion business, stressed that babies born alive after a failed abortion are rare.

"It would be wrong to imply from this retrospective study, that if women undergo a medical induction abortion at under 24 weeks' gestation for reasons aside from fetal abnormality, that this is at all likely to result in a live birth," she said.

Related web sites:
Alive and Kicking Campaign - http://www.aliveandkickingcampaign.org