Weighing just 11 ounces, newborn Hannah Stibbles is considered the smallest baby born in the U.K.—certainly in the last 20 years.  

Glasgow doctors told Hannah’s parents she had “next to no” chance of survival, but delivered her by C-section anyway. For Hannah’s mother, 17-year-old Ellie Patton and her partner Brandon, Hannah became a living miracle.  

“She came out fighting for her life and proved everyone wrong,” says Ellie. “She is a wee smasher.”  

Hannah’s survival—and the natural joy so many feel at her fight for life—are just another moral paradox for those who maintain that the unborn aren’t fully human. It’s a fiction that is getting harder to maintain. 

Though the Roe v. Wade decision considered birth at 25 weeks “unviable,” science is continually reassessing that criterion—and reaffirming what we should have known all along: It’s a fantasy that the unborn aren’t alive and human .

Hannah, and every child born or unborn, are worth fighting for.