Imagine what it must be like to be pregnant with your first child, to carry that precious little one in your womb for five full months, and then to suffer a miscarriage. At first, you are consumed by your own pain over losing your much-wanted child. Then, you begin to wonder what it must be like for someone who felt pressured - by circumstances, lack of support, fear - to abort her child. What happens with those who feel they have no other option?

These painful reflections after her miscarriage compelled Mrs. Mary Cunningham Agee to form the Nurturing Network (TNN), which recently moved its headquarters to Franciscan University. The Network seeks to serve those faced with crisis pregnancies that would otherwise end in abortion. It places women in loving homes, gets them clinical counseling if necessary, helps them find temporary employment if they are out of school, and assistance in transferring to new campuses if they have yet to complete their degree. Since its founding in 1985, the Nurturing Network has helped roughly 10,000 women, and counts over 22,000 volunteers in 23 countries.

"A woman knows in her heart of hearts that she is carrying a life," Agee says. "This is not where the debate lies. The debate lies in whether or not there are enough nurturers around her, practical enough in nature, real enough in their resources that she doesn't have to take the walk alone. If you can convey that support to a woman when she is pregnant and scared, and when she feels completely abandoned, she will not kill that baby."

Agee relocated the Nurturing Network headquarters from Carmel, California, to Steubenville in September 1997, believing that a college campus, with a ready supply of volunteers would serve as an ideal place from which to reach even more women in crisis pregnancies.

She chose Franciscan University because she sees it as "the most effectively pro-life campus in America." Three alumni serve as staff members, working in the space formerly occupied by the J.C. Williams Center computer lab.

"I wanted to place the Network on a campus where anyone who wanted to do more than talk about abortion, to do even more than protest about it, could actually roll up their sleeves and help a woman who has this problem," she says.

According to Agee, the University community has given a strong show of support for this ministry. Over 100 students have volunteered, including the entire Sacrifice of Love Household, which chose the Network for its service project this past spring. Other students have offered to act as ambassadors when they go home on breaks. This entails encouraging businesses and families in their area to provide jobs and homes to clients. Before the Network moved to Steubenville, such ambassadors did not exist. "The idea for this," Agee says, "came from Franciscan University."

Both Mrs. Agee and University President Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, would like to see the budding connection between the Nurturing Network and the Human Life Studies Minor grow because, Agee says. "We can provide the practicum for what these students have learned in the classroom." Currently, students may receive classroom credit for volunteering with the agency.

Agee is also eager to have more alumni provide homes, free medical care, jobs, psychological counseling, and mentoring services.

"The most fundamental fact of every human life," she believes, "is that we were not an accident. We were intentionally created by God, a God who is a loving God, an all-wise God; he does not make mistakes. None of us are throwaways. And because of this, no one has a right to destroy what God has created."