A healthy fetus becomes viable — potentially able to survive outside the womb — at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. If an abortion is performed at 20 weeks or later, a drug may be injected to stop the fetal heartbeat before the fetus comes out of the womb, Dr. Grossman said. In other cases, suction devices and other instruments end the fetus’s life before it is removed, he said. What happens in rare cases when a baby is born alive after a pregnancy is cut short? “No one could say we would always do this at one gestational age, and do something else at another gestational age.

Source: New York Times February 27, 2019 00:33 UTC