The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 27

Lo i vi rig Sh4 Also In This SectioD Action Line Family Livinl Medicine JB-1-18 JB-11 Movies and Theater BIS-tl Travel B-24, 23 SUNDAY, JUKE 3, 1973 mWU helps to talk about it! this point, abortion is what they want." "Many women still expect the whole backdoor hassle," Ms. Gottlieb says. "We reassure them that it's safe, legal, and confidential. Sometimes you pick up on crying or a tremble in a voice, but usually it's more what they're saving. Some will actually say they're against abortion; it's not what they prefer." The aim is to bring doubts out into the open; once the pregnancy is terminated, there's no turning back, and unresolved doubts become something to live with.

"One woman said her only reason for wanting to end the pregnancy was financial. She spoke with me for a long time. I explained other possibilities to her and referred her to another agency that helps pregnant women, but eventually she returned for the abortion," Ms. Gottlieb says. "We would love to have many places to refer those who seem unsure," Livingston says.

"But if promises of help from these other agencies don't materialize for a woman, she winds up just as alone as before and past the limit for safely terminating the pregnancy." AT LIVINGSTON'S, as at Planned -Parenthood, birth control information plays an important part in the counseling. "We stress that abortion is a good backup procedure to failed birth con trol, but that good birth control is the most important thing," Ms. Gottlieb says. "We certainly don't want repeat business." In maiy cases, this begins with some lessons in basic anatomy. "Within a full range of age, income, and education, you'd be appalled at what many women don't know about their bodies," Ms.

Gottlieb "Many don't even understand ovulation. All they know is that each month they have a period." The level of understanding is so low, in fact, that Livingston feels half the abortions he does would be unnecessary if there sufficient sex education in the schools. "In addition to education, we need to reach the more disturbed people early." he says. "We need schools with an unlimited number of psychologists or psychiatrists and no parental veto power. Some 14- and 15-year-olds see who want to keep their babies are very sick, very disturbed.

By that age, their lives are almost predestined. We'd like to refer them for deep therapeutic help, but it would be almost impossible to have that many psychologists and psychiatrists in the country," he says. SOMfi OF THE hardest cases to counsel are the very young. See ABORTION. Page B-5 In its newest set of guidelines, the New York City Board of Health suggests that a specially qualified social worker be in charge of abortion counseling at all facilities.

How necessary is counseling? Who should counsel? Will the costs of highly academically qualified counselors price abortions out of reach for some-women? SANDY GOTTLIEB is a counselor at the office of Dr. Robert M. Livingston, one of three facilities on-Planned Parenthood's referral list. She worked as a counselor at the Center for Reproductive and Sexual. Health (Women's Services) in New York before joining Livingston's staff.

"I started as clerical help at the New York clinic, then was promoted to counselor," she says. "There was a union hassle because there was no job description for counselor; they wrote one that included a bachelor's degree in psychology or sociology, plus social work experience. I had the degree in psychology and the social work experience, so I fit it. But I'll tell you, there were counselors who had. degrees in art and were just as good." Livingston hesitates to hire counselors without a bachelor's degree; its area of study doesn't matter.

"Beyond the degree, I look for somebody who's verbal, not shy or withdrawn, but not too verbal," he says. "A good counselor has to be able to listen very carefully and closely, too." A LOT OF THE INITIAL counseling at the Englewood Cliffs office goes on over the telephone. "This is medical as opposed to psychological material," Livingston says. "We'd ask about heart disease, epilepsy, a history of heavy bleeding after previous deliveries, for example. We also make a preliminary check that, at By LYNN LITTERINE Staff Writer MEDICALLY, it can be simple or complex, depending on the length of the pregnancy, individual problems, and the skill of the doctor.

But unlike a tonsillectomy and more like a vasectomy, mastectomy, or hysterectomy abortion is an operation with a social context. No one can indisputably identify the point at which life begins; no one can answer that for the abortion candidate. And the operation itself cannot begin to deal with why, in a time of available birth control, an unwanted pregnancy began. All these considerations must be faced at a time "of crisis, a time when speed means greater safety, a time when big decisions are coming hard and fast. Add to this the fact that, until recently, abortion has been illegal, inaccessible to studies of its effects on women, and you have women making those big decisions in an almost completely uncharted area.

WHAT STUDIES HAVE been done in the short time since its legalization point to emotional results ranging from traumatic effects on nearly everyone to universally experienced, relief. And. no matter what its findings, each study points out that, given the length of time it covers, said findings are inconclusive. Enter the abortion counselor nurse, doctor, social worker, psychiatric social worker, or empathetic person with a degree in anything. Planned Parenthood of Bergen County will not refer a candidate for abortion without some counseling in its own offices.

The doctors on its referral list must also provide additional contraceptive counseling to the patient. help for farmer bowing When I told her. she refused to answer my questions apparently she dealt only with radit and tried to transfer me to another number. "I'll transfer you to 4026." she said, "that's for newspapers." But when the operator answered, she "Transfer this to 5027," and before I Wayne Newton with one of his Arabian horses Singing cowboy OF CONSUMING says the Consumer Federation of America, which endorses the bill. The consumer federation says the bill has a tremendous potential effect on meat prices because much of the current high price of meat is the soaring cost of feed.

That's expensive because of the relatively short supply. "The farmer, knowing that there would be some protection from the economic disaster of surplus if we had this bill, would be inclined to grow all the feed grain the Agriculture Department asked him to grow. "His increased production would come closer to balancing supply with demand, thereby lowering the cattlemen's cost of feed grain and his overall cost of production, and that lower cost would be reflected in lower meat prices on the grocery shelf." the consumer federation says. In addition to the $2.28 a bushel for wheat, the target prices would be $1.53 a bushel for corn used as animal feed and 43 cents a pound for cotton, which approximates current market prices. TVTOW TO DIGRESS FOR a moment.

I've had i nothing but grief with the U.S. Agriculture Department since I got into this business. We just must be on the wrong wavelength. To find out how the U.S.D.A. stands on this bill, I called the press office in Washington and began to ask a question.

The public informaton officer interrupted to ask if I was from a newspaper, magazine, or radio or television station. By EDWARD J. GORIN Consumer Writer CONGRESS IS WORKING on what appears to be an ingenious bill that will protect farmers against the dangers of overproduction while at the same time protect consumers against sharply increasing prices. This year's farm bill, relabeled the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 would set target prices for wheat, feed grains, and cotton, guaranteeing by government subsidy those prices to the farmers. If the farmer overproduces and the price drops because there's not enough demand, the government would make up the difference.

If the farmer sells for over the target price, the government pays nothing. It sure beats the current government policy of paying the farmer for growing nothing, doesn't it? The target price for wheat in the bill, for example, is $2.28 a bushel. If the market price averages only S2.20, the government would pay the farmer the 8 cents difference, but if the price averaged $2.30, the government would pay nothing. THE FARMER IS protected against his big fear of producing too much and thus driving prices so low that he loses money. "If market prices are low, the consumer saves at the supermarket.

If food prices are high, the taxpayer pays nothing for the farm program," By DAN LEWIS Entertainment Writer A FEW MILES, perhaps 10 minutes driving time away from the famous hotel and casino strip in Las Vegas is the Casa De Shenandoah, an 18-acre ranch with three homes, a training track, a dozen or so fine Arabian horses and their young ones, and a fully equipped horse hospital. The head man at the Casa De Shenandoah is singer Wayne Newton, and this ranch is but a small part of his ranching empire. When he's not singing. Wayne also operates a 218 acre ranch another hour's ride northeast of here, where he breeds Arabian horses 135 at the present time. Wayne has more time to enjoy his ranches, his Arabian horses, and the peacocks and one kangaroo on the Shenandoah ranch these summer days and nights because of the writers' strike in Hollywood.

Wayne was all set by CBS-TV to host a summer variety replacement show. It would have run eight weeks. But the strike preempted scripts. So there's no TV show. At least not for this summer season.

Wayne isn't terribly disappointed. Aside from the fact he welcomes even- tit of time he gets to spend on his ranch, there's also the prospect of future television, which he now feels he's ready for. -'E RESISTED ung a regular TV 1 show until now." Wayne said, as we sat in the comfortable, rustic-looking sitting room of his home. I've changed my act." he explained. "I'm more mature.

I used to play the part of a kid. Franklv. I don't think See AYNE, Page B-22 could object I was connected to the Associated Press. "Yeah, that happens a lot to me. too," said tha AP reporter when I explained what happened Anyway, he had been follow ing this bill and knew the information I needed, so I never did read 4026.

THE AP REPORTER said that some farm groups have come out in support of the bill, but some haven't taken a stand. One of the big roadblocks, he said, is that the Agriculture Department that is the Nixon Administration wants something else but hasn't made clear exactly what. According to the Consumer Federation of America, the Administration endorses the concept but wants the target prices drastically reduced-See SOWLNG, Page 18.