One in 30 foetuses aborted for medical reasons is born alive, a 10-year study at 20 UK hospitals has found.
Most of these babies with disabilities were born between 20 and 24 weeks of pregnancy and all lived for no more than a few hours.
Anti-abortion campaigners said the figures in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology study were likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
But abortion experts said such incidents were extremely rare.
Abortion rates
About 190,000 abortions take place annually in England and Wales. This is nearly a quarter of all pregnancies.
Most abortions are carried out on “healthy” foetuses for social reasons.
The study, however, looked at the outcomes of 3,189 abortions performed between 1995 and 2004 because the foetus had a disability of some kind.
It showed that 102 – or around one in 30 – were born alive.
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