Jennifer, 23, is a single, white college graduate from a middle-class American home. She's smack in the middle of an exciting new career she's looked forward to for years. Jennifer is also pregnant and seriously considering an abortion.

"Typical" is a good word for Jennifer. Contrary to popular misconception, many --perhaps most -- of the women considering an abortion are not poor, do not belong to a racial minority and are not teen-agers. An informal survey of 100 women who received abortions revealed that 80 percent were white, between the ages of 20 and 26 and in the midst of an education or a career. In other words, it seems that many women considering abortion have a future they see as jeopardized by a unplanned pregnancy.

By chance, a friend gave Jennifer a newspaper ad placed by an organization called The Nurturing Network. "We want the mother-to-be to experience the comfort and freedom of knowing that an abortion is not her only option when faced with the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy.," the ad said.

Jennifer called the toll-free number in Boise, Idaho, and was soon talking with the director and founder of the Nurturing Network, Mary Cunningham Agee, who takes many such calls herself.

Dressed tastefully in pink and white, Mrs. Agee, 39, wears her honey blond hair pulled back. Her suite of offices on the top floor of a refurbished three-story building in downtown Boise is decorated in what might be called "neo-country-baby's-room."

In the outer office, a blue-screened computer glows with an unfinished letter. Two smiling, sharp-as-a-tack female assistants go about their work with pleasant efficiency. Framed photographs of babies adorn one wall and lacy pillows accent a comfortable couch and matching chair. On one table fresh strawberries, slices of kiwi, grapes and bagels circle a mound of cream cheese.

The wall-to-wall carpet in Mrs. Agee's office is almost white, the decor feminine. One gets the impression, however that Mrs. Agee isn't concerned about impeccable furniture. The oak veneer on her desk sports several nicks and scrapes. Still, this is obviously no church basement operation.

Before launching The Nurturing Network, Mary Cunningham Agee received an Ivy League education, then moved in powerful corporate circles. Her roots, however, are anything but patrician. "My father left my mother when I was five years old. But she did a great job of raising me and my two brothers and one sister," she said. "The male presence in my life came from a first cousin who is a priest. My memories of my childhood are not traumatic because Father Bill was there.

Mrs. Agee said she spent her childhood in "a daily Mass environment in an Irish Catholic family."

After growing up in Hanover, N.H., where she attended Catholic and public schools, Mrs. Agee received a full scholarship to Wellesley College. She majored in logic and worked as a waitress to support herself. She later earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard where she specialized in finance and international business.

After Harvard, Mrs. Agee held key positions at the Bendix Corp. In 1984, her book, Powerplay remained on The New York Times best-seller list for 12 weeks.

Mrs. Agee's husband, William Agee, is chief executive officer of Morrison Knudsen Corp., a Fortune 500 engineering and construction company based in Boise. The Agees are the parents of two young children, a boy and a girl, and so Mrs. Agee spends only two or three days a week in The Nurturing Network offices. "My own children are my top priority," she said.

Mrs. Agee said her Catholic faith is the center of her life. "I don't take the gifts I've received for granted," she said. "Looking at how I grew up, there's no reason I could have expected to receive the education I got or to have the professional experiences I've had. I really feel they are divine gifts and I'm meant to do something with them."

In her office, Mrs. Agee listened sympathetically to Jennifer's story, tapping a pencil on her desktop as she talked on the phone. She tells Jennifer she'll give her some forms to fill out and makes arrangements to talk again.

Mrs. Agee said that most of the clients The Nurturing Network sees are "painfully aware that their pregnancy is going to be a scandal to their families."

"They desperately need somebody to hold their hand and tell them, 'Don't panic, don't overreact and definitely don't think that your only option is abortion.' That's why it's so important from that first contact that these women get a very strong sense that what we are offering is not just words but a practical, viable alternative to abortion, free of charge," Mrs. Agee said.

The application sent to Jennifer is 15 pages long. It asks some soul-searching questions. Mrs. Agee considers it to be critically important. "I think it's because of the application that we frequently do get into questions like, 'What is most important to you in life?' We ask the medical questions and so forth, of course, but we ask questions about the meaning of life. And I would say that over half of our clients answer in a deeply spiritual way. Probably 75 percent."

Regardless of a Client's response to such questions, however, there is no attempt to impose religious or spiritual issues on her.

In some cases, Mrs. Agee said, a Client needs to live in "a nurturing home" away from a family fearful of scandal. In these cases, The Nurturing Network finds a family, often 2,000 or 3,000 miles away, for the Client to live with.

The Nurturing Network now has 3,500 members nationwide, she said. They include not only families willing to offer homes to pregnant women, but counselors, social workers, doctors, employers and educators.

"We have 14 variables we use in matching a Client with a family," Mrs. Agee said, "so that the Client will be with a family comparable to her own. If she is from a large family, we pick a large family. If her parents both have Ph.D.s, we pick a highly educated couple. Roman Catholic background, we pick a Roman Catholic family. If she has allergies to pets, we find a home with no pets. The categories include rural/urban, and several others."

If the Client is in college and doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of staying in her present circumstances during her pregnancy, The Nurturing Network will arrange for her to transfer to a similar school in another part of the country. If she feels she cannot remain in her current job, the Network will find her employment in a similar situation in a distant state.

If needed, The Nurturing Network arranges for the Client's prenatal care. She receives counseling to help her decide whether to keep the baby or give the baby up for adoption. If she keeps her child (about 70 percent do), the Client is helped to prepare for single parenthood.

To start The Nurturing Network, the Agees sold their vacation home and put all the proceeds into the new venture. Mrs. Agee then applied to have The Nurturing Network become a non-profit foundation, which allows it to have full tax-deductible status. The process took one year to complete. Mrs. Agee then wrote to all the people on her Christmas card list, explaining what she planned to do.

"Most of them responded in very supportive ways," Mrs. Agee said. Since then The Nurturing Network has relied on donations which remain a primary concern.

In 1987, an article on The Nurturing Network appeared in People magazine. It brought an outpouring of interest. Mrs. Agee said that people wrote from all over, saying, "Here is an approach I can believe in. You're not spending your time in argumentation and debate, you're spending your time with your sleeves rolled up, with a heart of compassion, giving women a true alternative to abortion." A recent article in the Wall Street Journal also brought many inquiries.

Mrs. Agee believes there is a place for the abortion debate. "There is a moral right and wrong here," she said. But she adds, "This is not the place I wish to spend my time. I wish to spend my time and efforts focused on making sure no woman in this country feels that her only option is abortion."

How do other pro-life organizations feel about the Nurturing Network? Gail Quinn, associate director of the U.S. bishops' office for pro-life activities, said the feeling among pro-life groups nationwide is congenial. "I have heard nothing but very, very positive remarks. Mary Cunningham Agee is providing a great service. She's going about it in the right way and it doesn't seem like anything is falling through the cracks. I don't know if scientific research would support the contention that most women who seriously consider an abortion are white, middle-class, age 20-26, and so forth. But certainly many, many women do fall into that category, and besides, Mary turns no one away."

Rita Marker, co-director of the Human Life Center at the University of Steubenville in Ohio, agrees. "This is an approach that was very definitely needed," she said.

What brought Mary Cunningham Agee to where she is today was the experience, six years ago, of a miscarriage. "Based on this painful time in my own life, I wanted to understand the heart and mind and soul of the woman who marches into an abortion clinic. What I found had nothing to do with freedom of choice. What I found was a woman who was deeply pained, agonizing over the situation, a woman who felt she had no other choice. That galvanized my spiritual self to say, 'We are to blame.' To the extent that we as a society are spending all of our time arguing about this matter and not feeding this woman, not clothing this woman, not providing her with a viable alternative to abortion, then it's on our hearts and minds, too. It's on our conscience."

Mrs. Agee called 10 abortion clinics and asked each if it would give her the first names and phone numbers of 10 women who had obtained abortions. She asked the women, "Would you have preferred a positive alternative to abortion if one had been presented to you?" Ninety-one out of 100 women responded, "Yes."

The second question Mrs. Agee asked the women she called was, "What would have represented a positive alternative to you?" She heard time after time, "If I could have continued my education," or, "If I could have continued my career."

What services are available for these women? Mrs. Agee conducted a search. "I looked around and none of them were trying to meet the needs of what I concluded is the largest group of women having abortions."

The Nurturing Network offers women with a crisis pregnancy help in coping with the pressures to get an abortion, pressure from parents, from the father of the baby, from employers, and from peers.

"This has nothing to do with freedom of choice," Mrs. Agee explained. "These are four loaded pressure points on any woman already in crisis. We pick her up from that loaded, pressured environment and say, 'Here's where you can be within a week or two: You can be living with a family that looks like this. You can have a doctor who has regard and respect for you. You can have a counselor as often as you need one. We can give you a transfer to a different school if you're in college or we'll find a meaningful job for you."

Sounds good, but does it work? "Do you want to know something?" Mrs. Agee said, smiling broadly. "Using this approach, not one of the over 1,000 women who have come to us has ever said, 'Gee, I think I'll go get an abortion, anyway.' Not one."

Mary Cunningham Agee has a dream. "Ten years from now, I'd like to see The Nurturing Network as large and as widespread as Planned Parenthood. I'd like every woman who has this problem of a crisis pregnancy to be as apt to think Nurturing Network as to think Planned Parenthood."

To contact The Nurturing Network, call 1-800-TNN-4MOM.