Anti-Abortion Advocates See Support In New Study On Premature Babies

04:06

May 13, 2015

Anti-abortion activists stage a 'die-in' in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. on January 21, 2015 on the eve of the 42rd anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v Wade to legalize abortion in the U.S. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Today on Capitol Hill, the House is expected to pass legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The bill is unlikely to ever get the president's signature, but anti-abortion activists say a new medical study could change future opinions and help justify their arguments to ban abortions in that stage of a pregnancy.

The study, published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that a small percentage of premature babies born after just 22 weeks of gestation can survive with medical intervention.

Here & Now's Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Eliza Gray of Time magazine for what that study's findings may mean for the future of the abortion debate.

Time: How a New Study on Premature Babies Could Influence the Abortion Debate

Guest

Eliza Gray, staff writer for TIME. She tweets @elizalgray.

This segment aired on May 13, 2015.

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