Abortion

An abortion is the premature termination of pregnancy resulting in the death of any or all carried embryo(s) or fetus(es). In medicine, the following terms are used to define an abortion:

• Spontaneous abortion: An abortion due to accidental trauma or natural causes. Also known as a miscarriage.
• Induced abortion: Deliberate (human induced) abortion. Induced abortions are further subcategorized into therapeutic abortions and elective abortions.
• Therapeutic abortion: An abortion perfomed because the pregnancy poses physical or mental health risk to the pregnant woman (gravida).
• Elective abortion: An abortion perfomed for any other reason.

In common parlance, the term "abortion" is used exclusively for induced abortion.
A pregnancy that terminates early, but where the fetus survives to become a live infant is instead a premature birth. A pregnancy that ends with a infant dead upon birth due to causes such as spontaneous abortion is termed a stillbirth.
The ethics and morality of induced abortion have become the subject of an intense debate in the past 50 years in various areas of the world, including the United States of America, Canada and a number of countries in Europe.
While abortions can be performed and occur in any animal that gives birth, this article focuses exclusively on abortions performed upon humans.

Table of contents [hide]

1 Spontaneous abortion 2 Induced abortions 3 Methods of inducing abortion 3.1 Medical Abortion 3.2 Surgical abortion 3.3 Other means of abortion 4 Health risks 4.1 Physical health 4.2 Mental health 5 Emergency contraception 6 History of abortion 7 Ogrish Content

Spontaneous abortion

Spontaneous abortions, known more commonly as miscarriages, occur frequently. Up to 78% of all conceptions may fail, in most cases even before pregnancy is confirmed. 15% of all confirmed pregnancies end in a miscarriage. Most miscarriages occur very early in a pregnancy. Since early embryonic development is an error prone process, the body may spontaneously abort if a fetus is not viable (i.e., due to genetic deformities, such as most cases of trisomy), or when the womb is unable to support the development of the fetus. A spontaneous abortion can be caused by accidental trauma, while trauma with the intent to cause miscarriage is considered an induced abortion. Some states have laws increasing the criminal liability of a person who causes a miscarriage during an assault or other violent crime.

Induced abortions

The term "abortion" is usually used by lay people to refer to induced abortion. Induced abortions are sought for a number of reasons, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were 1.31 million abortions in the US in 2000, and cases of rape or incest accounted for 1.0% of abortions in 2000. Women from 27 nations reported the following reasons for seeking an induced abortion:

• 25.5% – Want to postpone childbearing
• 21.3% – Cannot afford a baby
• 14.1% – Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy
• 12.2% – Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy
• 10.8% – Having a child will disrupt education or job
• 7.9% – Want no (more) children
• 3.3% – Risk to fetal health
• 2.8% – Risk to maternal health
• 2.1% – Rape, incest, other

An abortion in China

In many areas of the world, especially the developing nations or where induced abortions are illegal, many women choose or are pushed to perform abortions on themselves. These self-induced abortions are commonly unsafe abortions as described by the World Health Organization. Furthermore, some abortions are induced because of societal pressures, such as stigma of disabled persons and similar eugenic ideals, or laws, such as under China's one-child policy. These policies and societal pressures can lead to sex-selective abortion and infanticide, which is illegal in most countries, but difficult to stop.
Some women, poor or uninformed, choose not to go to a legally approved place to get an abortion, their only other choice being to turn to untrained, and often unsafe, providers. These abortion providers levy fees based on the ability to pay, degree of guilt felt, and extent of secrecy desired. After the anxiety and expense of choosing this alternative, women are often left with serious disabilities and sometimes suffer fatal consequences from incomplete or septic procedures. Sometimes, in this case, the woman doesn't see any other way to take the baby's life right after it is born.

Methods of inducing abortion

Depending on the gestational age of the embryo or fetus, different methods of abortion can be performed to remove the embryo or fetus from the womb.

Medical Abortion

Medical Abortion, sometimes called chemical abortion, comprises 10% of all abortions in the United States and Europe. Medical abortion is a method used to induce abortion during the first trimester. Medical abortion is accomplished by administering either methotrexate or mifepristone (RU-486) followed by administration of misoprostol. Misoprostol may also be used alone to induce abortion; however the need for surgical intervention is slightly elevated (about 10%), compared to the 8% of medical abortions using a combination of medications. Surgical intervention is primarily vacuum uterine aspiration (See below). Methotrexate can also treat undiagnosed or concomitant ectopic pregnancies.

Surgical abortion

In the first fifteen weeks, suction-aspiration or vacuum abortion are the most common methods, replacing the more risky dilation and curettage (D & C). Manual vacuum aspiration, or MVA abortion, consists of removing the fetus or embryo by suction using a manual syringe, while the Electric vacuum aspiration or EVA abortion method uses suction produced by an electric pump to remove the fetus or embryo. From the fifteenth week up until around the eighteenth week, a surgical dilation and evacuation (D & E) is used. D & E consists of opening the cervix of the uterus and emptying it using surgical instruments and suction.
Dilation and suction curettage consists of emptying the uterus by suction using a different apparatus. Curettage refers to the cleaning of the walls of the uterus with a curette. Dilation and curettage (D & C) is a standard gynaecological procedure performed for a variety of reasons, such as examination.
As the fetus grows, other techniques must be used to induce abortion in the third trimester. Premature delivery of the human fetus can be induced with prostaglandin; this can be coupled with injecting the amniotic fluid with caustic solutions containing saline or urea. Very late abortions can be brought about by the controversial intact dilation and extraction (intact D & X) which requires the surgical decompression of the fetus's head before evacuation and is controversially termed "partial-birth abortion". A hysterotomy abortion, similar to a caesarian section but ending with a dead fetus, can also be used at late stages of pregnancy. Hysterotomy abortion can be performed vaginally, with an incision just above the cervix, in the late mid-trimester.

Other means of abortion

Certain herbs are considered by some to be effective abortifacients. Using herbs in this way can cause serious side effects, including multiple organ failure and other serious injury, and are not recommended by physicians. Many herbal recipes were compiled and published in medieval times under the name of Peter of Spain.
Physical trauma to a pregnant woman's womb can cause an abortion. The severity of the impact required to cause an abortion carries high risk of injury to the pregnant woman, without necessarily inducing a miscarriage. Both accidental and deliberate abortions of this kind carry criminal liability in many countries.

Health risks

As with most surgical procedures, the most common surgical abortion methods carry the risk of serious complications. These risks include: a perforated uterus, perforated bowel or bladder, septic shock, sterility, and death.
Accurately assessing the risks of induced abortion is difficult due to a number of factors. These factors include a lack of uniform definitions of terms, and difficulties in follow-up.
Use of "traditional medicine" methods (e.g., overdoses of various drugs and inserting various objects into uterus) for abortions is also dangerous. Serious complications from abortions done outside of professional clinics may include infections and bleeding. In many cases, such abortions lead to death.

Physical health

Each phase of the abortion carries separate risks, and practitioners are not in agreement as to the best methods of mitigating those risks. The degree of risk depends upon the skill and experience of the practitioner; maternal age, health, and parity; gestational age; pre-existing conditions; methods and instruments used; medications used; the skill and experience of those assisting the practitioner; and the quality of recovery and follow-up care. A highly-skilled practitioner operating under ideal conditions will have a very low rate of complications, whereas an inexperienced practitioner in an unsanitary, ill-equipped and ill-staffed facility will typically have a high complication rate.
Some practitioners advocate using the minimal possible anesthesia, so that patient pain can alert the practitioner to possible complications. Others recommend general anesthesia in order to prevent patient movement which might cause a perforation. General anesthesia carries its own risks and most public health officials recommend against its routine use in abortion due to an increased risk of death.
Dilation of the cervix carries the risk of cervical tears or perforations, including small tears that might not be apparent and might cause cervical incompetence in future pregnancies. Most practitioners recommend using the smallest possible dilators, and using osmotic rather than mechanical dilators after the first trimester of pregnancy.
Instruments are placed within the uterus to remove the pregnancy. These can cause perforation or laceration of the uterus, and damage to structures surrounding the uterus. If the uterus is perforated, surrounding structures, especially the bowel, may be pulled through the perforation into the uterus. Partial evisceration can result, with its attendant risks, including peritonitis and the need for a colostomy.

Woman died after illegal abortion in Venezuela

Laceration or perforation of the uterus or cervix can result in amniotic fluid embolism, with the resulting risk of disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, shock, and death.
Incomplete emptying of the uterus can cause fever, hemorrhage, and infection, which if not promptly diagnosed and treated can lead to sepsis and death. Another risk is failure to diagnose ectopic pregnancy, which can lead to rupture, infection, hemorrhage, sepsis, and death. Use of ultrasound verification of the location and duration of the pregnancy prior to abortion, with immediate follow-up of patients reporting continuing pregnancy symptoms after the procedure, will virtually eliminate this risk. In some cases, the abortion will be unsuccessful and the pregnancy will continue. Most practitioners recommend a second procedure to terminate the pregnancy due to the possibility that the abortion attempt had caused injury to the fetus.
The sooner a complication is noted and properly treated, the lower the risk of permanent injury or death.

• Abortion-breast cancer (ABC) hypothesis

The controversial abortion-breast cancer (ABC) hypothesis posits an association between having an abortion and a higher risk of developing breast cancer. The proposed mechanism is based on the increased estrogen levels found during early pregnancy, which initiate cellular differentiation (growth) in the breast in preparation for lactation. The ABC hypothesis states that if the pregnancy is aborted before full differentiation in the third trimester, then more "vulnerable" undifferentiated cells would be left than prior to the pregnancy, resulting in an elevated risk of breast cancer. The majority of interview-based studies have indicated a link, and some have been demonstrated to be statistically significant, but there remains debate as to their reliability because of possible response bias.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), it is "well established" that "induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk." Those findings have been disputed by Dr. Joel Brind, a leading scientific advocate of the ABC hypothesis. Nevertheless, gaps and inconsistencies remain in the research as the "ABC link" continues to be a politicized issue.

• A specific and undisputed complication that can arise, especially with repeated abortions by a dilatation and curettage, is the development of Asherman syndrome.

Mental health

The medical literature has not conclusively shown that abortion affects mental health.

"George Walter, an employee of then US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, conducted a review of more than 250 studies in the literature pertaining to the psychological impact of abortion. Walter conducted the review at the request of Koop, who was being pressured by then US President Ronald W. Reagan to produce a report. Walter consulted primarily with researchers from the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Centers for Disease Control, and used primarily studies recommended by researchers in favor of easy access to legal abortion. Walter submitted the report to Koop, who instructed Walter to shelve the report. Koop submitted a letter to Reagan indicating that the research was inconclusive. However, Walter released the report under Koop's name. Thus, public debates in the US as to the safety of legal abortion remain muddled. Opponents of abortion cite Koop's letter finding the evidence inconclusive, and those favoring the availability of legal abortion cite Walters' report, released under Koop's name, and attributed to Koop."

Research on the risk of clinical depression associated with abortion has been inconclusive:

• Another study of 2,525 women revealed that women who had an abortion were more likely to report depression or lower satisfaction with their lives. However, they also often reported rape, childhood physical and sexual abuse, and violent partners. After controlling for the history of abuse, partner characteristics, and background variables, abortion was not related to poorer mental health.
• A study in the Medical Science Monitor stated that, "Consistent with previous research, the data here suggest abortion can increase stress and decrease coping abilities, particularly for those women who have a history of adverse childhood events and prior trauma." In the study, 65% of post-abortive American women and 13.1% of Russian women experienced multiple symptoms of increased arousal, re-experiencing, or avoidance associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to the study, 14.3% of American and 0.9 % of Russian women met the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD. However, in all fairness, not all PTSD is necessarily from abortion. Labor Law Talk has this commentary on the paper: "In keeping with the paper, it should however be noted that many day to day tasks cause problems for sufferers of PTSD, especially as a result of child abuse. Visits to dentists are often a problem, but women often still try to get to them and to avoid all events in life that might lead to re-traumatization."

Emergency contraception

Emergency contraception refers to forms of birth control that can be used after sexual intercourse. Birth control primarily prevents pregnancy by preventing fertilization. However, some forms of birth control, especially if used immediately prior to or after intercourse, can potentially prevent implantation of the embryo (often called a blastocyst), causing its death. If personhood starts at conception, this would be morally equivalent to an abortion. The most controversial of these forms of emergency contraception is currently the morning-after pill, which is legal in a number of countries and has recently been legalized in the United States and in Canada.

History of abortion

According to some anthropologists, (induced) abortion has occurred from ancient times forward. Abortions were induced with sharpened sticks, poisonous herbs, abdominal pressure, special exercises, and other techniques. Many ancient texts contain specific recipes for abortificants, or even descriptions of specialized medical instruments designed to remove a fetus from the womb. Along with changes in medical science, there have been changes in the societal norms and laws that govern abortion.

Posthumous execution

Posthumous execution is the ritual execution of an already dead body.
In Christian countries until relatively recently, it was believed that to rise on judgement day the body had to be whole and preferably buried with the feet to the east so that the person would rise facing God. A Parliamentary Act from the reign of King Henry VIII stipulated that only the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. Restricting the supply to the cadavers of murderers was seen as an extra punishment for the crime. It follows that if one believes dismemberment stopped the possibility of resurrection on judgement day, then a posthumous execution is an effective way of punishing a criminal. Attitudes towards this issue changed very slowly in Britain and was not manifested in law until the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. However for many of the British population it was not until the 20th century that the link between the body and resurrection was finally broken. Respect for the dead is still a sensitive issue in Britain as can been seen by the furore over the Alder Hey organs scandal when the organs of children were kept without parents' informed consent.
Examples include:

• Pope Formosus (died 896), whose body was exhumed by his successor, Pope Stephen VII, dressed in papal vestments and seated on a throne to undergo a "trial", later known as the Cadaver Synod or the Synod Horrenda. Found guilty, the body was stripped, three fingers from its right hand cut off, and the corpse thrown into the Tiber.
• John Wyclif (1328–1384), who was burned as a heretic 12 years after he died.
• Vlad the Impaler (1431–1476), who was beheaded following his assassination.
• King Richard III of England (1452–1485), who was hanged by his successor King Henry VII following his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field. His body was further desecrated following the dissolution of the monasteries and, according to legend, cast into the River Soar.
• Pietro Martire Vermigli (1500–1562), who was burned as a heretic following his death.
• A number of the regicides of Charles I of England had died before the Restoration of King Charles II. Parliament passed an order of attainder for High Treason on the four most prominant deceased regicides: John Bradshaw the court president, Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and Thomas Pride. The bodies were exhumed and the first three were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. The most prominent was the former Lord Protector Cromwell, whose body after said "punishment" was thrown, minus its head, into a common pit. The head was finally buried in 1960. The body of Pride was not "punished" perhaps because it had decayed too much. Of the regicides still alive ten were executed and others either fled or were imprisoned. For a full list see List of regicides of Charles I.
• François Duvalier (1907–1971), Haitian dictator, whose body was exhumed and ritually beaten to 'death' in 1986.

Necklacing

Necklacing (sometimes metonymically called Necklace) refers to the (never legalized) practice of execution carried out by forcing a rubber tire, filled with gasoline, around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire.
The practice became a common method of lethal lynching during South Africa's national liberation struggle off the 1980s and 1990s. Necklacing sentences were sometimes handed down against alleged criminals by "people's courts" established in black townships after residents had lost confidence in the apartheid judicial system. Necklacing was also used to punish offenders, including children, alleged to be traitors to the liberation movement as well as their relatives and associates. The African National Congress (ANC) condemned the practice, although it was frequently carried out in the name of the ANC.
More recently, it has been used by vandals and protestors as a method of damaging speed cameras.
The same practice of extra judicial lynching is found in the Caribbean country of Haiti, prominently used against supporters of the Duvalier dictatorship at the beginning of the democratic transition (from 1986 to 1990). The term used in popular language is "Père Lebrun" (Father Lebrun), because of the well known autoparts dealer Mr LEBRUN, in whose shops tires can be bought by motorists.

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is a method of capital punishment. It gained popularity in the twentieth century as a supposedly humane form of execution meant to supplant methods such as electrocution, hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, or decapitation; the actual humaneness of the technique has become debated in recent decades.

Table of contents

1 Procedure 2 Procedure in the United States 3 History 4 Controversy

Procedure

In theory the process of "lethal injection" could refer to a wide variety of means of execution: besides the diverse deadly chemicals available for use, intravenous administration can be achieved in a number of different ways. The technique has historical precedents in other forms of execution by poisoning, such as the forced suicide undergone by Socrates, and also in the widespread use of lethal injection as a means of animal euthanasia. The present section discusses the methods of lethal injection in current active use in the world.

Procedure in the United States

After the condemned is fastened on the execution table, two intravenous catheters are inserted, one in each arm. Only one is used for the execution, the other is reserved as a backup in case the primary IV fails for some reason.
The arm of the condemned is swabbed with alcohol before the needle is inserted. Along with its antiseptic use, the alcohol also causes the blood vessels to rise to the skin's surface, making it easier to insert the needle. The needles and equipment used are also sterilized, though this is because they are standard medical products that are sterilized during manufacturing. There is also a chance that the prisoner could receive a stay of execution after the needles have been inserted as happened in the case of James Autry in October 1983 (he was executed eventually on 14 March 1984). Also it would be a hazard for those handling the equipment.
The injection is intravenous and is usually a mixture of compounds, designed to induce rapid unconsciousness followed by death through muscular paralysis of the lungs and/or by inducing cardiac depolarization.
The execution of a victim in most states involves three separate injections:

1. Sodium thiopental: to induce a state of unconsciousness intended to last while the other two injections take effect.
2. Pancuronium/Tubocurarine: to stop all muscle movement except the heart. This causes involuntary muscle paralysis, collapse of the diaphragm, and eventually death by asphyxiation.
3. Potassium chloride: to stop the heart from beating, and thus the victim's death: see cardiac arrest.

The drugs are not mixed externally as that can cause them to precipitate.
The intravenous tubing leads to a room next to the execution chamber, usually separated from the inmate by a curtain or wall. Usually some type of IV technician with certification to insert the IV tube performs that role, while the chemical technician, who is usually a member of the prison staff orders, prepares, and loads the chemicals into the machine. After the curtain is opened to allow the witnesses to see inside the chamber, the condemmed person will then be permitted to make a final statement. Following this, the warden will signal for the execution to commence, and the executioner(s), either prison staff or private citizens, depending on the jurisdiction will then activate the machine, which mechanically delivers the three drugs in sequence. Other than visual observation by prison staff, the doctor, and the witnesses, there is no mechanical or scientific monitoring of the inmate during the process and no effort is made to determine whether anesthesia is ever in fact induced. Death usually results within seven minutes, although the whole procedure can take up to 45 minutes.
The American Medical Association's Code of Ethics prohibits doctors from participating in executions. However there is always a physician present to officially declare the prisoner dead.

History

Hitler's personal doctor, Karl Brandt, was the first to suggest injecting a lethal dose of poison as an execution method, specifically for euthanizing disabled people. The T-4 Euthanasia Program used lethal injection among other methods. At the Auschwitz concentration camp, SS personnel killed prisoners that were ill or that had been sentenced to death by injection of phenol and other poisons.
The United States was thus, strictly speaking, the second nation to experiment with lethal injection as a means of execution, using it first on December 7, 1982 when Charles Brooks, Jr. was executed in Texas.
The concept had been proposed in 1888 by J. Mount Bleyer in New York, but was not approved. It was also rejected by the British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1949–1953) after pressure from the British Medical Association. In 1977, Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection after the idea was revived in the US in February 1977 by Dr. Stanley Deutsch. Since then, the majority of US states using capital punishment prefer to use lethal injection.
The practice extended outside the US when it was adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1997, Guatemala in 1998, and the Philippines in 1999. Some other countries have adopted the method in law but not in practice.
The staff that inserts the needle into the arm and inject the drugs are not medical professionals, as performing a medical procedure to kill the "patient" would seem to violate the Hippocratic Oath. In the United States, the code of ethics of the American Medical Association forbids doctors or nurses from taking part in lethal injection procedures, but volunteer emergency medical technicians have been used for this purpose.

Controversy

The concern has been raised that execution by lethal injection, as practiced in the United States, is not actually humane. It has been argued that the ultrashort-acting anaesthetic may wear off, leaving the inmate fully conscious, yet rendered paralyzed by the paralytic agent. There are several reasons for the concern.
First, sodium thiopental is an ultrashort-acting barbiturate, used in surgery only in the induction phase of anesthesia, specifically so that the patient may awaken and breathe on his or her own power if any complications arise in inserting a breathing tube pre-surgery. It is not used to maintain a patient in a surgical plane of anesthesia because of its short-acting nature.
Second, the second injected chemical, pancuronium bromide, may act to dilute the initial injection of sodium thiopental.
Third, because the personnel involved in administering the injection lack training and expertise in anesthesia, the risk of failing to induce unconsciousness is greatly increased. The dosage of sodium thiopental must be measured with precision, and the administration of the proper amount of the dosage depends upon both the concentration of the drug and the size and condition of the subject. Because of the manner in which the drugs are administered (remotely, with no observation of the inmate), the risk of errors in the injection causing insufficient amounts of chemicals to enter the bloodstream is greatly increased.
The effect of dilution or improper administration of sodium thiopental is that the inmate dies an agonizing death through slow suffocation while fully conscious, yet unable to express any pain. While pancuronium bromide paralyzes skeletal muscles, including the diaphragm, it has no effect on consciousness or the perception of pain or suffering. For this reason, the use of paralysing agents for the euthanizing of animals like cats and dogs has been made illegal — either directly or by reference to the American Veterinary Medical Association's panel on euthanisia, which prohibits the practice generally — in at least 19 states, including Texas, the state that executes the most people by lethal injection. However, the use of these agents for execution continues.
On occasion, there have also been difficulties inserting the delivery needles, sometimes taking over half an hour to find a suitable vein. Some of the previous errors in Texas executions include:

• Technicians punctured the inmate repeatedly in both arms and legs for 45 minutes before a vein was located. (Stephen Peter Morin , March 13, 1985)
• Executioners struggled for 35 minutes to insert the catheter into an inmate's veins. (Elliot Johnson, June 24, 1987)
• 24 minutes elapsed between the time the initial injection occurred and the time the inmate was pronounced dead; two minutes into the procedure, the syringe came out of the inmate's arm and the chemicals sprayed out towards witnesses. (Raymond Landry, December 13, 1988)
• After an inmate had a violent physical reaction to the drugs as they were injected, the Texas Attorney General stated the inmate "seemed to have a somewhat stronger reaction," adding "The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose or more rapidly." (Stephen McCoy, May 24, 1989)

In 2005, University of Miami researchers reported in the medical journal The Lancet that they believed in 43 out of the 49 executions they investigated, the levels of thiopental in the blood was lower than that required for surgery. This has lead them to believe that the prisoners were fully aware of what was happening to them. The authors attributed the rate of likely consciousness among inmates to the lack of training and monitoring in the process, and recommended that states take a look at the American Veterinary Medical Association's recommendations on animal euthanasia, which prohibits the use of paralytic agents in combination with barbiturates and recommends animals like cats and dogs be euthanized by a single injection of a long-acting barbiturate such as sodium pentobarbital.
Opponents of lethal injection as currently practiced argue that the procedure employed is entirely unnecessary and is aimed more towards creating the appearance of serenity and a humane death than an actually humane death. Pancuronium bromide, the paralytic agent employed in lethal injection, is used in surgery to keep patients immobilized during delicate surgical procedures that occur near vital organs. By contrast, its use in lethal injection serves no purpose, since there is no need to keep the inmate completely immobilized and the inmate is physically restrained. Because death can be painlessly accomplished, without risk of consciousness, by the injection of a single large dosage of barbiturate, the use of any other chemicals is entirely superfluous and only serves to unnecessarily increase the risk of torture during the execution. Legal challenges, however, have to date been unsuccessful, and federal courts have employed a range of procedural obstacles to avoid reaching the merits of the complaints, likely to avoid the temporary moratorium that would occur while states moved to alter their respective execution protocol.

Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice was practiced in many ancient cultures. Victims were ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease gods or spirits. On very rare occasions human sacrifices still occur today.
Reasons for human sacrifice include:

• Sacrifice to accompany the dedication of a new building like a temple or bridge. Chinese legends hold that thousands of people were entombed in the Great Wall of China, though they were not.
• Sacrifice upon the death of a king, high priest or great leader; the sacrifices were to serve or accompany the deceased leader in the next life. Mongols, Scythians and various Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and concubines, with them to the next world. This is sometimes called a "retainer sacrifice," as the leader's retainers would be sacrificed along with their master.
• Sacrifice for divination; a priest would try to predict the future from the body parts of a slain prisoner or slave. According to Strabo, Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms.
• Sacrifice in times of natural disaster. Droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. were seen as a sign of anger or displeasure of gods and sacrifices were made to appease the divine ire. Cretans tried to stop the destruction of their island this way.
• Ritual combat: the victim was killed in a nominally fair fight against a warrior.

Human sacrifices were made in the Bronze Age Celtic religions in Europe, and in rituals related to worship of Norse gods (modern Ásatrú and Druidism do not condone such practices). However, because most of the information comes from outside sources (Greeks and Romans for Celts and medieval Christians for Norsemen) who may have had ulterior propaganda motives, contemporary historians consider them suspect.

Modern human sacrifice

Human sacrifice still happens in some traditional religions, for example in muti killings in eastern Africa. Human sacrifice is no longer officially condoned in any country, and such cases are regarded as murder.
Some people in India are adherents of a religion called Tantrism (not to be confused with Tantric Buddhism); most either use animal sacrifice or symbolic effigies, but a very small percent of them still engage in real human sacrifice:
Even groups of the richest and most powerful people in the world still gather for an annual mock human sacrifice of an effigy at the Bohemian Club in California.

After a rash of similar killings in the area -- according to an unofficial tally in the English-language Hindustan Times, there have been 25 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last six months alone -- police have cracked down against tantriks, jailing four and forcing scores of others to close their businesses and pull their ads from newspapers and television stations. The killings and the stern official response have focused renewed attention on tantrism, an amalgam of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. (In India, case links mysticism, murder - John Lancaster, Washington Post, 11/29/2003)

In Western cultures no human sacrifice occurs beyond murders committed by serial killers or the largely unsubstantiated rumors of Satanic ritual abuse. Modern occultists consider such sacrifices unnecessary, or use them only in the symbolic form where the volunteer "sacrifice" is not actually killed. Christianity holds that the crucifixion of Jesus was history's most important sacrifice.
Some people have tried to extend the use of sacrifice-related terminology. A few writers have written that war--so often charged with religious and nationalistic symbols--is a form of human sacrifice. Abortion, also a politically charged topic, has been called an act of human sacrifice to the god of convenience.
Modern muslim terrorist suicide bombers as well as Japanese kamikaze pilots can be claimed to be examples of human (self-)sacrifice too.
Historically prominent human sacrifices include:

• Lindow Man in the United Kingdom
• Tollund Man in Denmark (from the article: At first, Tollund Man was believed to be a rich man who had been ritually sacrificed, but recent analysis suggests that he may simply have been a criminal who was hanged and buried in the peat bog.)

Hanging is a form of execution or a method for suicide.

Hanging may involve breaking of the neck (cervical fracture, in the case of a "long-drop"), or one or more of the following (in the case of a "short-drop"):

• Closing the airway
• Closing the carotid arteries
• Closing the jugular veins
• Carotid reflex (which reduces heartbeat when the pressure in the carotid arteries is high) causing cardiac arrest

As punishment it has been used throughout history.
In England the short drop method was used until the 19th century until the long-drop was introduced.
The short-drop could be a protracted affair and was primarily for the entertainment of the watching public, the struggling of the victim giving rise to such terms as "the hangman's hornpipe".

History

Hanging has been used as punishment throughout history; it is known to have been invented and used by the Persian Empire. The typical sentence involving hanging is that the condemned person "be hanged by the neck until dead". A more elaborate sentence, once used for particularly heinous crimes (e.g., high treason in Britain), was for the person to be "hanged, drawn and quartered" – here the victim was saved from asphixiation in order to endure the further ordeals.
Hanging has historically been the method of execution used for common criminals; in feudal England, for example, peasants were usually hanged for crimes, while the nobility were usually beheaded. Since as a result hanging has become associated with dishonorable execution, the courts in the post-World War II war crimes trials in Germany (the Nuremberg trials) and Japan mandated its use for war criminals rather than execution by firing squad.
As a form of judicial execution in England, hanging is thought to date from the Saxon period, circa AD 400. Records of the names of British hangmen begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s; complete records extend from the 1500s to the last hangmen, Robert Leslie Stewart and Harry Allen, who conducted the last British executions in 1964.
Early methods of hanging simply involved a hangman's noose on a rope placed around the victim's neck, with the loose end thrown over or tied to a tree branch; the hangman then drew up the criminal, who slowly strangled. An early refinement had the victim climb a ladder or stand in a cart that the hangman then removed. The 1800s saw the development of a machine that used weights to draw the victim aloft. A further development had the victim step onto a metal plate, triggering the weights so that it was the victim that effectively started the process. As the number of executions increased, purpose-built gallows, which usually consisted of two posts joined by a crossbeam, replaced trees. Soon virtually every major town and city in Britain had its own gallows.
Although hangmen had introduced the "drop" by the late 1700s, it was initially only a substitute for the ladder or the cart. The first well-known practitioner of "the drop" was William Calcraft, but his successor William Marwood (who was often quoted as saying "Calcraft hanged them, I execute them"), introduced the "long drop". Marwood realised that each person required a different drop, based on the prisoner's weight, which would dislocate the cervical vertebrae resulting in "instantaneous" death.
detail from a painting by Pisanello, 1436-1438A process of sometimes grisly experimentation led to the discovery that an energy of 1260 foot pounds (1710 joules) would have the desired effect, so one could calculate the required drop by dividing 1260 by the weight of the victim: a person weighing 112 pounds (50.8 kg) required a drop of 11'4" (3.43 m). Over time, Marwood refined this basic formula to take account of the prisoner's age, stature, and physical condition, especially after some early mistakes when too great a drop resulted in decapitation. Marwood also experimented with the positioning of the knot, and discovered that placing it under the left ear or under the angle of the left jaw would jerk the head backwards at the end of the drop and instantly sever the spinal cord and dislocate the cervical vertebrae. Prison governors and staff who were required, following the abolition of public executions in 1868, to witness executions at close quarters, welcomed the development of swift and "clean" methods of hanging.
As time went by, hanging became more of a science than an art. By the mid-20th century the average time between taking a victim from the cell and death was around fifteen seconds – although on May 8, 1951 Albert Pierrepoint conducted the fastest hanging on record when James Inglis, whom a court had only three weeks earlier convicted and sentenced for the murder of a prostitute, was pronounced dead only seven seconds after leaving his cell.
Extra-legal primitive forms of hanging persisted well into the 20th Century in the United States in the form of lynchings, where torture and/or mutilation of the corpse often accompanied the hanging.

Suicide by hanging

Statistically, suicide by hanging is committed more by men than women. If done properly, hanging, in theory, is quick and painless. A strong noose, combined with a significant drop will cause the spinal column to snap instantly, cutting off the brain from the body and halting its vital functions. The concept of hanging is not to kill an individual by choking, but if the rope (or whatever is used to hang the victim) is a little loose, this is precisely what will happen.
In these instances the individual will only accomplish strangling him or herself to death, gasping and gagging and the tongue swells. If the spinal column remains intact, the experience will include intense shooting pain the length of the body, eyes bulging out of the head, and frequent twitching and kicking.

Execution

Execution is the killing of a convicted criminal as a deliberate legal act. It is usually a formal act, and is often done either under law or with quasi-legal justifications given. Execution can be legal, if preceded by a judicial process or in accordance with appropriate law (see capital punishment), or illegal, such as killing of hostages. Because of this, in controversial contexts, one person's 'execution' is often another persons unjustified murder.
Formal military executions are typically by firing squad (for violations of orders in wartime or the laws of war) or by hanging (typically for cowardice, or commission of atrocities or other crimes).
Methods of execution which involve, or have the potential to involve, a great deal of pain or mutilation are considered to be torture and unacceptable to many who support capital punishment. Some of these, if halted soon enough, may not have fatal effects.