'It is very difficult to keep a 24-week baby alive'The fact that it has become possible to keep alive the occasional premature child born as early as 24 weeks into their gestation GESTATION, med. jur. The time during which a female, who has conceived, carries the embryo or foetus in her uterus. By the common consent of mankind, the term of gestation is considered to be ten lunar months, or forty weeks, equal to nine calendar months and a week. has played a key role in the recent debate over abortion, a point acknowledged by Dr Hussein Mehmet, honorary reader in neuroscience neu·ro·sci·ence n. Any of the sciences, such as neuroanatomy and neurobiology, that deal with the nervous system. neuroscience the embryology, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology of the nervous system. at Imperial College London History Imperial College was founded in 1907, with the merger of the City and Guilds College, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science (all of which had been founded between 1845 and 1878) with these entities continuing to exist as "constituent colleges". . 'It did make me think very carefully about this issue,' he told The Observer In 1967, when the Abortion Act was passed, it was assumed that the age of viability for a foetus was 28 weeks, a limit previously enshrined in the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act. However, over the next two decades the development of drugs that help premature babies to breathe in Verb 1. breathe in - draw in (air); "Inhale deeply"; "inhale the fresh mountain air"; "The patient has trouble inspiring"; "The lung cancer patient cannot inspire air very well" inhale, inspire incubators, and the setting up of neo-natal clinics to care for these early-born babies across the country, brought the age of viability down to 24 weeks. As a result, it was decided to change the abortion limit from 28 to 24 weeks when parliament debated the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology embryology Study of the formation and development of an embryo and fetus. Before widespread use of the microscope and the advent of cellular biology in the 19th century, embryology was based on descriptive and comparative studies. Act. Since then, anti-abortion campaigners have argued that further improvements in viability would help them to press for further changes in the time limit. However, this has proved to be a forlorn hope (Mil.) a body of men (called in F. enfants perdus ltname>, in G. verlornen posten ltname>) selected, usually from volunteers, to attempt a breach, scale the wall of a fortress, or perform other extraordinarily perilous service; also, a desperate case or enterprise. See also: Forlorn , as Mehmet makes clear. 'It is very, very difficult to keep a 24-week baby alive,' he says. 'If you look at magnetic resonance magnetic resonance, in physics and chemistry, phenomenon produced by simultaneously applying a steady magnetic field and electromagnetic radiation (usually radio waves) to a sample of atoms and then adjusting the frequency of the radiation and the strength of the image scans of babies at 24 weeks, you can see their brains are still not properly developed. More to the point, they do not catch up if we do manage to keep them alive. A lot of these children tend to have a very poor quality of life.' For this reason, Mehmet - while initially hesitant - can see no reason to change the legal limit for abortions. 'At present the age around 24 weeks remains a viability and I can see no reason to change the time limit. Indeed, if it is brought down, the only people who would suffer would be women who discover late in pregnancy that they are carrying a foetus that has serious abnormalities but who could no longer get an abortion.' 
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