There are different standard medical methods to remove a foetus from the womb.

Which method is used, depends on the advance of pregnancy.

Till the twelfth week the suction method is possible. This is a out-patient treatment and needs just five to ten minutes. Therefore the cervix is enlarged with a spreader and the content of the womb is sucked out with an air suction pump.

For there are no residues the mucous membrane of the womb is going to be scraped out with an instrument formed like a spoon. This operation by sucking out was introduced in China in 1958 and displaced soon the traditional method to remove the foetus by scraping it out.

After the fifteenth week of pregnancy, a chloride solvent can be used for abortion: through the abdominal wall amnion fluid is extracted with a tube and replace by a concentrated chloride solvent (above 20 percent). This treatment dissolves strong womb contractions within 24 to 48 hours, the foetus is scraped fast. Already at the next day patient can leave hospital.

On a late stadium of pregnancy abortion is done by hysterotomy, a more important surgical operation. It is similar to Caesarean section, but needs a smaller cut of the abdominal wall.

An alternative to those treatments is the medicament RU-486. RU-486 holds up the hormone Progesteron and has an effect within the first fifty days of pregnancy. The medicament is taken as a pill in presence of a doctor. RU-486 has been developed in France an is there admitted for selling since 1988. Meanwhile it is used also in other countries as Austria or Great Britain.