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Views and attitudes. towards termination of pregnancy have shown con siderable evolution over the past few decades. Along with these changes has come a growing concern to adopt means and methods which could make termination easier, safer and more effective. In this evolution, termination in the second trimester in par~icular is notable as being responsible for a dis proportionate share ofthe complications and adverse experiences associated with pregnancy termination. Although the almost universal shift towards earlier abortion has reduced the number of second trimester procedures as a percentage of the whole, the problems of interrupting pregnancy in the second trimester remain conspicuous. Delay in either seeking or obtaining abortion is still, in many parts of the world, all too frequent. AdditiDnally, recent developments in the prenatal diagnosis of fetal malformations, alphafeto protein screening programmes and changes in the pattern of and approaches to intrauterine fetal death now also place greater emphasis on the need for adequate methods of interrupting pregnancy in the second trimester. Unlike the first trimester in which vacuum aspiration is universally con sidered to be the method of choice, in the second trimester of pregnancy the clinician is faced with alternatives; one method may be more appropriate than another in a particular circumstance and no single method is unequivocall~ accepted as best. Neither do second trimester terminations form a neatly defined single category.
