A few nights ago I sat in utter amazement watching a young character in a new “family" drama series get an abortion.

The show, “Everwood,” is centered on a small family in a small, rural town. The show's creator says it is “geared for teen-agers.” The network airing it, The WB, has for some time now been the network of young viewers. Its strongest demographic is 12- to 34-year-olds.

The protagonist of the show, a doctor and widower-father played by Treat Williams, is a warm-hearted, earnest fellow who is no doubt endearing to many viewers but a bit too easily befuddled for my tastes. (His utter inability to explain to his 9-year-old daughter that pornography is wrong, for example, was difficult to endure.) His character, Dr.

Andy Brown, is a good example of the kind of man modern entertainment seems fixated on — confused, weak milquetoasts who are guided through life by sage, strong-willed women. (Where have all the cowboys gone?)

In the show in question, 18-year old Kate is two months pregnant and the father of the baby has skipped town.

Kate's domineering father visits Dr. Brown, demanding that he take care of the problem. “This is between you and me,” he insists. It's clear that what Kate wants does not matter.

At this point, my mind was racing. This is not half bad, I thought. This depicts the reality of so many young women who are forced into abortion by their families. This helps to give the lie to “pro-choice" because it shows that it's not her choice at all.

Dr. Brown sees Kate, who is quivering, the very picture of vulnerability. She's afraid to tell her mother, she fears her father's wrath, she's been abandoned by her boyfriend. She needs a way out. Dr. Brown tells her that abortion can be a traumatic experience emotionally. She should take a couple of days to think about it.

He himself is torn. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to do the abortion. He's done “the procedure" once before, but the death of his wife has given him a new appreciation for life, and for death.

I was quivering now. Can it be? Is this show telling the truth about “choice"? Is this, in fact, a pro-life storyline?

Alas, it was not. Enter the great sage, Dr. Brown's secretary, a tough old bird who lectures him about how, in this life, “men make the mess, women clean it up.” It's time for Dr. Brown to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. Give this girl the help she needs — an abortion, you idiotic man!

And so, with her help, he begins to work through his muddle. “I don’t know when life begins. I don’t even know that, for a scientist, that question is answerable.” He's troubled by the memory of a previous operation where he saw the visible organs of a fetus at 54 days — it was, he says, “not a person,” but still “a perfect possibility of a person.” And yet …

There is one thing he does know. He remembers being told by his wife that the “right to choose is the most important thing a woman owned.” Maybe he's too weak to help Kate himself, but he'll find help somewhere.

Now, as we viewers are knee-deep in pro-choice clichés (“Doing this kind of thing in this town can get a man killed!") — and I’m thinking that Planned Parenthood could’ve written the script — up flashes a local Planned Parenthood commercial encouraging viewers to call to learn more about the subject of tonight's show.

Dr. Brown was not the only fool that night.

Kate — the new Kate, now self-composed, confident — has decided that abortion is “the best thing for me.” Help comes in the form of the brave Catholic doctor who, following in the footsteps of his illegal abortionist father before him, has vowed never to forsake women. He aborts her child, and then we see him walk into a confessional, kneel, and begin: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” as the credits roll. Brilliant!

The reviews of this episode were glowing. Entertainment Weekly said it “grappled" with the topic “evenhandedly yet decisively.” The Akron Beacon Journal said the show “tackled" the subject in a “surprisingly intelligent" way. The Chicago Tribune said the show was “proof" that it had “some smart people behind it.” And the Los Angeles Times said the show “confronted" the issue “with grace, sensitivity and reason.” (To send your own review to The WB, e-mail [email protected].)

What if Kate had had the baby? What if Dr. Brown had found help for her of a different kind? What if the abortion were portrayed as a tragedy, a betrayal of Kate in her time of need? What if the Catholic doctor had acted like a Catholic? One has to suppose that “smart,” “intelligent" and “reasonable" would not be the reviewers’ dominant themes.

After the show ended, I realized something. At the same time “Everwood" airs, the hit sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond" is on CBS with Emmy Award-winner Patricia Heaton.

Heaton is the honorary chair of Feminists for Life. She believes that, “Women who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy.”

So it is that Monday night television offers a “family-style" abortion on one channel while a pro-life comedienne makes people laugh on another. There might be hope in Hollywood after all.

Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq., is director of planning and information for the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.