BACKGROUND: The management of abortion using manual vacuum aspiration causes pain that could be unbearable for patients. A good pain management to prevent this as well as improve patients’ satisfaction is essential. Comparing parenteral pentazocine with paracervical block in a randomized control trial will give an insight as to the more effective option with fewer side effects. OBJECTIVE: To compare the effectiveness of pain management during manual vacuum aspiration and the side effect profile between intravenous pentazocine and 1% lignocaine during paracervical block in a randomized control trial. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial METHODOLOGY: In this study, 100 patients attending the gynaecological emergency unit, diagnosed with incomplete abortion were randomized into two groups(50 patients in each group) to ascertain an effective method of pain relief with better side effect profile during manual vacuum aspiration. Following manual vacuum aspiration, pain scores were obtained with a visual analogue scale while the side effect profile was obtained using a questionnaire. Statistical analysis was done on the data obtained using statistical package for social sciences version 21 for windows (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA).