Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus before it can survive outside the uterus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a spontaneous abortion; when deliberate steps are taken to end a pregnancy, it is called an induced abortion, or less "induced miscarriage". The unmodified word abortion refers to an induced abortion. A similar procedure after the fetus has potential to survive outside the womb is known as a "late termination of pregnancy" or less as a "late term abortion"; when properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine, but unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal death in the developing world. Making safe abortion legal and accessible reduces maternal deaths, it is safer than childbirth. Modern methods use surgery for abortions; the drug mifepristone in combination with prostaglandin appears to be as safe and effective as surgery during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. The most common surgical technique involves using a suction device.
Birth control, such as the pill or intrauterine devices, can be used following abortion. When performed and safely on a woman who desires it, induced abortions do not increase the risk of long-term mental or physical problems. In contrast, unsafe abortions cause 5 million hospital admissions each year; the World Health Organization recommends legal abortions be available to all women. Around 56 million abortions are performed each year with about 45 % done unsafely. Abortion rates changed little between 2003 and 2008, before which they decreased for at least two decades as access to family planning and birth control increased; as of 2018, 37% of the world's women had access to legal abortions without limits as to reason. Countries that permit abortions have different limits on how late in pregnancy abortion is allowed. Abortions have been attempted using herbal medicines, sharp tools, forceful massage, or through other traditional methods. Abortion laws and cultural or religious views of abortions are different around the world.
In some areas abortion is legal only in specific cases such as rape, problems with the fetus, risk to a woman's health, or incest. There is debate over the moral and legal issues of abortion; those who oppose abortion argue that an embryo or fetus is a human with a right to life, they may compare abortion to murder. Those who support the legality of abortion hold that it is part of a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. Others favor accessible abortion as a public health measure. An induced abortion may be classified as elective. 205 million pregnancies occur each year worldwide. Over a third are unintended and about a fifth end in induced abortion. Most abortions result from unintended pregnancies. In the United Kingdom, 1 to 2% of abortions are done due to genetic problems in the fetus. A pregnancy can be intentionally aborted in several ways; the manner selected depends upon the gestational age of the embryo or fetus, which increases in size as the pregnancy progresses. Specific procedures may be selected due to legality, regional availability, doctor or a woman's personal preference.
Reasons for procuring induced abortions are characterized as either therapeutic or elective. An abortion is medically referred to as a therapeutic abortion when it is performed to save the life of the pregnant woman. An abortion is referred to as an elective or voluntary abortion when it is performed at the request of the woman for non-medical reasons. Confusion sometimes arises over the term "elective" because "elective surgery" refers to all scheduled surgery, whether medically necessary or not. Miscarriage known as spontaneous abortion, is the unintentional expulsion of an embryo or fetus before the 24th week of gestation. A pregnancy that ends before 37 weeks of gestation resulting in a live-born infant is a "premature birth" or a "preterm birth"; when a fetus dies in utero after viability, or during delivery, it is termed "stillborn". Premature births and stillbirths are not considered to be miscarriages although usage of these terms can sometimes overlap. Only 30% to 50% of conceptions progress past the first trimester.
The vast majority of those that do not progress are lost before the woman is aware of the conception, many pregnancies are lost before medical practitioners can detect an embryo. Between 15% and 30% of known pregnancies end in clinically apparent miscarriage, depending upon the age and health of the pregnant woman. 80% of these spontaneous abortions happen in the first trimester. The most common cause of spontaneous abortion during the first trimester is chromosomal abnormalities of the embryo or fetus, accounting for at least 50% of sampled early pregnancy losses. Other causes include vascular disease, other hormonal problems and abnormalities of the uterus. Advancing maternal age and a woman's history of previous spontaneous abortions are the two leading factors associated with a greater risk of spontaneous abortion. A spontaneous ab
The Star Fox video game series is a franchise of rail shooters and other action-adventure games published and produced by Nintendo. The games have been developed by a variety of developers, but all of the games have had input from Nintendo. All Star Fox video games have been developed for Nintendo video game consoles and handhelds dating from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the current generation of video game consoles; the series debuted in Japan on February 21, 1993 with Star Fox, released in North America and Europe, being renamed in Europe to Starwing. The series revolves around the Star Fox team, a group of mercenaries hired to protect the Lylat system; the leader of the group, Fox McCloud, is the protagonist of the series, the only playable character in most of the games. The series contains five games. One reason the Star Fox series has remained popular is because of the shoot'em up aerial sequences found in many of the games, which are recognized as the series' high points.
Dylan Cuthbert, one of the original creators of the series, noted that it was the combination of the on-rails aerial action and the in-game universe that made the games successful. Official Nintendo Website Q-Games Official Site
M33 in Andromeda is a collection of six science fiction stories by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, first published in April 1971. "Siege of the Unseen""Siege of the Unseen" is a short story told by eyewitness accounts in court. Together, these accounts tell a grim story of a man who discovers a third eye on his forehead after a car accident removes the skin covering it. Instead of getting it re-covered, the man attempts to get it to see; the better the man is on enabling the third eye to work, the more he can see a parallel universe where everyone has a third eye begins to creep into his own. "Discord in Scarlet""Discord in Scarlet" is a short story where the spaceship Space Beagle, flying between our galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, runs into an alien life form. The life form is a sentient creature named Ixtl that survived the rebirth of the universe, it can control nearly all aspects of its body, survive in the vacuum of space, asexually reproduce, flow through all but the most super dense materials, eat nearly anything.
The crew are able to trick it to leave the ship. "M33 in Andromeda""M33 in Andromeda" is returning once again to the Space Beagle as it arrives at the Andromeda galaxy. As it approaches, the crew are bombarded by message after message to not come any closer and to go home; the sociologist on board proposes that maybe something is just trying to get them to go home and not to keep them from there. They press onward and discover that every planet in the galaxy is covered in rain forests, with the same species on each one. Underneath the rain forests they find ruins of civilizations, they discover. The mist is a sentient creature, it was a self-replicating puff of vapor over a swamp but now embraces the galaxy. To get more life energy it converts whole planets into rain forest worlds, it tried to get the Beagle to leave so it could take it over. When the crew figure this out, they set up the means to destroy the mist; the reference to M33 in the title of the story is an error: the galaxy described is the Andromeda Galaxy, rather than the Triangulum Galaxy.
The latter is in the constellation Triangulum rather than Andromeda. "The Expendables" "Heir Unapparent" The emperor of the world, who seized control 50 years ago with the aid of a super-weapon that he designed, is dying. He has 48 hours to live. With his remaining time he has to find out who did it, stop a military take-over and keep his heir apparent from taking over. "The Weapon Shop"