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T he call came at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. "Miss Cathi," the teenage boy said, "I called you because I really need help. I really want to have sex, but I know I shouldn't."

Cathi Woods recognized his voice and knew the boy was calling from a "good Christian home." He had just returned from a date with his girlfriend and was terrified that their passion was getting out of hand.

"Both of us are Christians," the boy explained, "but we went too far. We didn't sleep together, but I'm worried about next time. You're the only person I can talk to."

Woods quietly walked the boy through an hour of phone counseling. "You know how bad you feel right now?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"If you go all the way, you'll feel a hundred times worse."

"I can't imagine feeling any worse than I do now," the young man confessed.

Woods proceeded to lead this young man through a litany of practical, real-life suggestions. By the end of the call, the boy was crying but extremely grateful.

"Thank you, Miss Cathi," he said. "You may have just saved my life."

Cathi Woods was the architect of what Rhea County (Tenn.) High School principal Pat Conner calls "a remarkably effective" abstinence program. In just one year, Rhea County dropped from being number one in teen pregnancies per capita in the state to tenth; during the second year, they dropped from tenth to forty-sixth and then, one year later, to sixty-fourth. Nothing else was done differently either in the school or the community, except for Woods's program. "I was quite surprised at the success," Conner admits. "Normally, one program doesn't have such an impact."

The program was so successful that when the state received federal money under a Title V federal grant, the entire $35,000 made available to Rhea County was awarded to Woods's program. Despite her outspoken Christian underpinnings, Woods was asked to spearhead an adolescent pregnancy council in Rhea County. Woods herself has since moved on to Boston to work with the Daybreak Pregnancy Resource Center, but the successful program she launched in Rhea County continues under the direction of her successor, Mona Coffield.

The need for such programs is acute. Although the rate of teen pregnancies has been decreasing in the 1990s, about one million teens become pregnant each year in the United States, according to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health; one-third of these pregnancies result in an abortion. Of the children carried to term, about 72 percent are born out of wedlock. This social devastation is exacerbated by an alarming health crisis among young people. In 1996, five of the top ten reportable infectious diseases—including the top four—were sexually transmitted. Adolescents (10-19) and young adults (20-24) are the age groups most at risk for acquiring a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Local and federal governments have been throwing dollars at the problem without seeing much success. Every year, a staggering $10 billion is spent on fighting major STDs and their preventable complications, and this figure does not include AIDS-based programs.

Is it possible that a program that teaches abstinence is able to succeed where $10 billion has failed?

Where the Bible Belt buckles
Rhea County is home to Bryan College, named after the fiery William Jennings Bryan, best known for his defense of creationism during the famous Scopes trial. It is an extremely conservative county, where almost all identify themselves as Christian. Some might wonder: If Rhea County is so "religious," why did they have such a problem with premarital sexual activity?

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March 1 1999, Vol. 43, No. 3