"The state has really abdicated its responsibilities," Mr. Downey said.

Though personally opposed, he said, as president he believes that "the state cannot abdicate from caring for this as a public health question, because to do so would lead to the death of many young women in this country."

Not likely, suggests Mr. Cuomo, who expects the city will be driven by the courts or humanitarian impulses or both to step in where the state abdicated - at an even higher cost.

Many Tragedies The victory is a bittersweet one for mental health experts and advocates for the mentally ill who say they have witnessed countless lives wasted in loneliness, isolation and homelessness because the state abdicated its responsibility to care for the mentally ill who were no longer institutionalized.

"The state of New York abdicated its responsibility and left each city and town on its own," Mr. Gaskell said.

What, in fact, will become of what Mr. Cuomo calls "the Family of New York" if the state mimics the Federal Government and abdicates its responsibility to care for its citizens?

State Criticized on Homeless The group said the state has abdicated its responsibility under its Emergency Assistance program to provide shelter for homeless people.

"The state has abdicated its responsibility to the city," the Common Council President, James E. Tansley, said today as the Council chambers were filling for a scheduled meeting of the state board, the Bridgeport Financial Review Board, which was to act on the city's budget.

"The state has abdicated its responsibility largely because I don't understand how it's a humanitarian policy to say to someone with mental illness, here's your Thorazine, take it every four hours and live on the streets of New York City."

He said in a radio interview on Monday that while he was personally opposed to abortion, "the state cannot abdicate from caring for this as a public health question, because to do so would lead to the death of many young women in this country."