UHS Will Conduct Survey to Examine Abortion Attitudes

A University Health Services committee will soon conduct a survey of undergraduate opinion concerning the extension of UHS care to cover abortion.

The Consumers' Council, a UHS undergraduate advisory group, will distribute in mid-April a referendum in the Houses attempting to determine:

* familiarity of undergraduates with UHS's present service of arranging for abortions with state and out-of-state hospitals:

* interest in UHS's equipping itself with abortion facilities; and.

* opinion of the cost responsibility: whether the present health fee should cover the cost that an adjustment of UHS budget priorities would entail; whether a small health fee increase would be acceptable; or whether the individual patient should cover the cost.

Sholem Postel, associate director and chief of Medicine at UHS, said yesterday that the survey would be only one piece of crucial data in the final decision.

Further studies would involve feasibility in accordance with state emergency requirements, cost projections, and the response of UHS administrators, the UHS corporation and the ad hoc advisory committee representatives, faculty and employees, Postel said.

However, Postel stressed the important impetus the referendum results would lend to the entire study.

Margaret S. McKenna '70, assistant to undergraduate Council, said yesterday that she considers abortion part of a comprehensive health care plan.

"A health insurance plan lowers the cost of individual health care because a community shares the risk of illness," McKenna said.

Postel said that allergy care is an even more specialized service of the present UHS health care plan than abortion, but indicated that its nominal costs--less than $1 of a student's yearly health fee--insure its feasibility.

"One difficulty in assessing the need and cost of abortion facilities is the inaccuracy of present data," McKenna said. "The one to two weekly abortions arranged through UHS are only a very rough estimate of potential users who are presently ignorant of UHS services or deterred by costly hospitalization," she added.

Caring for unwanted pregnancies on UHS premises would significantly alter the real cost of abortion by as much as several hundred dollars, McKenna said. The patient's fee might increase or decease according to other public health plan adjustments, she added