Last Updated Nov 14th, 2019 at 3:53 pm

Four out of ten babies born at 23 weeks are now surviving with proper neonatal care. This is twice the survival rate from 2008, according to a report by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine which studied births in the U.K.

“It is possible, in 2019, to save babies who could not previously have survived. That is fantastic news,” a medical ethics professor involved with the research said.

The report also showed that babies born at 22 weeks have a 30 percent survival rate.

In Great Britain, it is currently legal to choose the elective abortion of a fetus up until 24 weeks or up to birth if doctors believe the baby will be born with a disability.