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Volume 31, Number 1, January/February 1999 termination using methotrexate started to appear in both the medical and popular literature.3 Interest in this method grew rapidly within the community of abortion providers. In spring 1996, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) devoted its annual postgraduate symposium to medical abortion, including both mifepristone and methotrexate, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced its intention to conduct trials of methotrexate abortions on some 2,500 patients. Moreover, NAF now lists some 97 individuals and clinics as providers of medical abortion. Against this backdrop of growing interest in medical abortion, I conducted exploratory interviews in the fall of 1996 with long-term surgical providers of abortion about their responses to medical abortion. A small number of surveys have examined the prospective involvement of physicians in providing abortions if mifepristone became available,4 and a handful of analyses are available on patients’ responses to medical abortion.5 However, only one study has undertaken in-depth interviews with surgical providers to learn about their reactions to medical abortion.6 The rationale for such an exploratory study is a presumption that medical abortion will not spread to a wider range of providers (i.e., those not now offering surgical abortions) until these regimes have been tested by veteran abortion providers. Thus, only by examining reactions to medical abortion in this highly committed group can we gain clues as to the likelihood of widespread diffusion of these techniques among the larger population of United States physicians. Drawing on the NAF membership base, I interviewed 25 experienced providers of surgical abortion: physicians, mid-level practitioners and clinic counselors (two Canadian providers were among those inCarole Joffe is professor in the Department of Sociology, University of California at Davis. The research described in this article was partially funded by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation. Reactions to Medical Abortion Among Providers Of Surgical Abortion: An Early Snapshot