Q&A: Why limit abortion?
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Premature babies are capable of surviving below the current 24-week time limit
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A study at one of Britain's top neonatal units found that one third of babies born between 22 and 25 weeks' gestation survived in the early 1980s but this had risen to 71 per cent by the late 1990s.
The biggest improvements were among the 24 and 25-week babies.
Campaigners have already called for the 24-week abortion limit to be lowered, but experts have previously argued there has been little improvement in the chances of babies born very early.
The findings are set to spark a further row over abortion as MPs are tabling amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to either liberalise terminations or restrict them. The 24-week limit was set in 1990.
Latest data from the Department of Health show that of the 201,173 abortions in England and Wales in 2006, 1,262 were at 22 weeks or more.
Of eight babies born alive at 22 weeks at University College London Hospital between 1996 and 2000, four survived to go home. Between 1991 and 1995 only two were born at 22 weeks and neither lived.
For babies born at 23 weeks the survival rate increased from 44 per cent in 1991-95 to 46 per cent in the late 1990s. At 24 weeks, half the babies born between 1991 and 1995 lived. This rose to 81 per cent for those born in 1995-2000.
One third of the babies born at 25 weeks in 1991-95 survived, rising to almost three quarters in 1995-2000.
However, one quarter of all the infants were found to have a disability when they reached their first birthday. This proportion did not improve over the years.
Julia Millington, from the ProLife Alliance, said: "The current 24-week time limit was set in 1990 based on the gestational age a foetus was considered viable at that time.
"Neonatal medicine has progressed since then and premature babies are capable of surviving below the current time limit."
Prof David Field, the president-elect of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, said: "The viability of premature babies and abortion are completely different arguments that have been muddled up. You either believe in abortion or you don't."
