Daily News from New York, New York • 221

DAILY NEWS, SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1980 VIEW 33 SSI W--1 JM ff SjD. dffisj? fx By john Mclaughlin WOMEN'S SERVICES 1LLEN McCORMACK isn't the type to Dut on airs. She is 53. out of Queens Village and All Saints Yo can of ford to choose private core rf doubt ei toon poutbie for early pregnancy dsciuon. The most advanced pregnancy diognostt within 90 minute.

Taik tMngt over women-to-women with sympethetie profeteionot counselor. Hove a thorough gynecologtcal mom THEM decide with the comforting eiturance that your decision is feared on rebable. medjcoi information orovided board The ctiok it ywiSi3 fortunately a ontevcan afford Abortion $135 fcr II III I I Mil lirKOLN TOtHi MtvCAt OfHCCS WCi ftroodwov cgr tt St.) nr Uncate CKW tWrtfDCIttWS BOB M3N a tj care about yo Mtw VotK Arsa ABCRTiONJ 1 Trfe Ml i New Dennis CarusoDaily REE PRCGNANCV TEST: g- en Vr 5f irirt w- Wfvsii TlC fw nvf nap vgrch Set! oftv- w6os Or cj av vHvie xa ol PS GNANOf TEST forty Abort-on J250 $450 Aborfion Ort AwnVe Asleep Ouo.liw cor Vfi! tUHGlCAL GRWjp C. Kgt A CIKXc-Prlvott ierykit (212)829-7000 Weitcheifar Areo cau mtmi-vm- Atftiiat TrocNna HotiO tic toe -wees-tai -wi 21 of 1976, McCormack raised $275,000 in contributions and got another $250,000 in federal matching funds. She was on the ballot in 20 states, polled 300,000 votes, won two convention delegates and wound up with 20 when the big roll call was taken in Madison Square Garden.

Two years later, she was the running mate of Mary Jane Tobin, Right to Life's candidate for governor of New York. They polled 130,000 votes, more than enough to establish the party as a bona fide political party in this state, which means that McCormack will have no trouble getting on the presidential ballot in New York this year. If the presidential election in New York is as close as expected, and McCormack does at least as well as she and Tobin did in 1978, she could deny Reagan New York and its 41 electoral votes. Reagan has the support of the National Right to Life organization, which is 10 million strong. But McCormack will be on the ballot not only in New York but in New Jersey and Kentucky, and, if things work out well for her, in seven other states as well.

She refuses to disclose which states she has in mind, saying that to do so would only alert the Democrats and Republicans there to step up their efforts to keep her off the ballot McCormack's quarrel with Reagan is simply that she thinks he may be soft on abortion. She notes that in 1967, Reagan, while governor, signed a bill authorizing abortions when the health of the mother might be affected; that Reagan campaigns for Republican candidates who are pro-choice, and, she says, he tends to waffle on the hard questions such as whether he really would push for a constitutional convention to outlaw abortion. Roger Stone, Reagan's press coordinator, accuses McCormack of indulging in an "ego trip," but McCormack says she is just staying true to the basic principles and aims of her party, which -is to grant endorsements only when candidates pledge down-the-line support for Right to Life goals and to put unremitting pressure on politicians. Reagan, she says, should be treated just like any candidate for the Legislature or Congress looking for Right to Life help. And, she says, his record on abortion should be scrutinized just as closely as President Carter's or Sen.

Edward Kennedy's. abortion 832033 High School. Married in 1949, once and forever to Francis J. McCormack, of Bay Ridge and St Francis Prep, a city cop then; now retired. The obligatory stint of saving and apartment-living in Queens and then the inevitable move to Welcome Wagon land Merrick, L.I., there to raise the kids.

Mother of four, grandmother of three. Housewife. Also a founder of the Right-to-Life Party, the quickest-growing political movement in the United States today. This year, as in 1976, candidate for President of the United States. "I would have to say," she commented last week, "my chances of being in the White House next January are, oh, very small." "Minuscule," her husband chimed in.

Impossible, really. But Ellen McCormack just might be the pivot on which the 1980 presidential election will turn. Her presence in the race is serious business, and, ironically, a plus for President Carter, who supports a woman's right to have an abortion and a troublesome minus for former Calif. Gov. Ronald Reagan, who, more than any other national candidate since Right to Life became a political reality, supports the anti-abortion point of view.

She was pleased with last week's Supreme Court decision that Congress may refuse to finance most abortions for poor women, even "medically necessary" abortions, while continuing to pay for childbirths. The decision will be "helpful," she observed, but added that the anti-abortion fight will still be waged in those 20 states where Medicaid abortions are still legal especially New York. Right to Life has been trying for years to get a vote in the New York State Legislature on a state ban against abortion, but Stanley Fink, Assembly speaker, has refused to allow the bill out of committee for a vote. To the question, "Why should poor women be penalized for not being able to afford McCormack replies that poor people should be "but killing their children is not the way to do it" Running in the Democratic primaries QABORTIpN mf PfiEGNANCy TEST Seme Tw Oil T-KX'Tt- EASTERN VrtVCfTS CENTER 4 ifr.mo.irti Appntm? ItstA to AFM. iP to Ellen McCormack: the spoiler? "When I ask our people who are backing Gov.

Reagan why they're doing it, they tell me, 'I trust That isn't good enough. He has to show us that as President he would be concerned about the lives of the unborn do something about it." "We did a lot of research in the early days on abortion and its effects, and we did a good job of educating people, but we found that it wasn't the issue they were concerned about What worried "them was how many pro-abortionists and how many anti-abortionists they had among their constituents. That's why we got so heavily into politics." McCormack said that it is more important for her to run and talk about the issue than it is for her party to go to bat for Ronald Reagan. "I don't believe in the death penalty. It's like abortion and mercy killing; if you can't solve the problem if it is too expensive to deal with, then just eliminate the people and that's something that needs to be talked about in this election," she says.

So what if Ellen McCormack costs Ronald Reagan New York in November and if for the want of New York the Republican presidency is lost? "Well," observed the candidate, "that would have a certain amount of political impact, wouldn't it?" John McLaughlin is the chief politi-cal correspondent of The News. "feiE abortion? wrfco filSTH CO5iT0i EXAM 79 727V Board i'f jj OB Gv 0oc N.V rVESICHK Abortions 5KIYN I TO 12 Wftt.S A30RT10N PAV.fOM STfcCTlV 788-1919 -ct Av rt 5rrr I 734-5700 WKOKT IOSI When is abortion 'medically necessary By EDWARD EDELSON "An absolute contraindication to pregnancy is relatively rare," he said. "There is only a small group of women who one can predict will die because of pregnancy. The relative contraindication is a matter of judgment One can say that a woman with heart disease is at greater risk because of pregnancy than she would be from abortion. But we can get people with heart disease through pregnancy safely.

The decision about medical necessity inevitably involves the judgments of both the physician and the pregnant woman, Rosenfield said. "Some physicians bend over backwards to persuade a woman not to have an abortion," he said. "Many of us think that it is the woman's right to decide. The judgment will vary from individual to individual, both with the patient and the doctor." The same considerations apply to pregnancies in which the fetus is found to have a genetic abnormality. Again, there are few absolutes, because the severity of such conditions varies widely.

Edward Edelson is The News science editor. increased risk during pregnancy, and also disorders of the adrenal gland." Other conditions that can make an abortion medically necessary include hepatitis or other severe liver disease, cancer and a number of less common disease, Rosenfield said. Youth and social conditions can also make an abortion medically necessary, adds Alfred F. Moran, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood of New York. "Take a 15-year-old in a welfare family, with a low level of nutrition, bad housing and a generally poor health status.

The physician may advise her to terminate this pregnancy because the chances of a poor outcome are high, with the thought that she can undertake another pregnancy when conditions are improved." "Emotional and mental reasons are more difficult to define," he said. "But you don't need a psychiatric consultation that someone is suicidal to find that she needs an abortion." The major point about all these conditions, Rosenfield added, is that almost none of them is an absolute bar to pregnancy. that the definition leaves an enormous amount of leeway to the physician and the woman. "The physician really is making an individualized decision in every case," said Harriet F. Pilpel, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood of New York City.

"It is no different from "any other procedure. Whether a procedure is medically necessary is something that a physician decides every time he treats a patient" There are some broad guidelines that most physicians argree on, said Dr. Allan Rosenfield, an obstetrician who is with the Center for Population and Family Health at Columbia University. An abortion can be medically necessary because of a woman's physical health or her emotional condition, he said. "On the physical side, there are a number of conditions that put a woman at increased risk because of pregnancy," Rosenfield said.

"Most of these conditions are diseases of the cardiovascular system. They include heart disease, hypertension, past history of stroke, and others. "A second group of conditions can be described as metabolic. They include diabetes, which clearly puts a woman an THE SUPREME COURT ruled last week that the federal s3 "government does not have to pay for abortions in the Medicaid program, a key issue was the phrase "medically necessary." Judge John F. Dooling of Brooklyn District Court ruled last January that the government had to pay for medically necessary abortions, as it paid for all other medically necessary procedures.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court disagreed. Legally, a "medically necessary" abortion is well defined. The Supreme Court outlined the definition in a 1973 case and has reaffirmed that definition in two other cases. The language was included in Dooling's decision: medically necessary abortions are those "that are necessary in the professional judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician in the light of all factors, physical, emotional, psychological, physical, familial and the woman's age relevant to the health and well-being of the pregnant woman." Both legal and medical experts agree.