A group that has been studying teen pregnancy in Orange County for two years issued its plan Thursday for combatting the problem--teaching abstinence at an early age and providing more services for adolescent mothers.

But the group carefully skirted the more controversial issues of birth control and abortion.

"Right now we need to pull together as a community to prevent adolescent pregnancy," said Patricia Boortz, coordinator of the Adolescent Pregnancy ChildWatch project, a broad-based Orange County coalition. The group presented its recommendations at a briefing attended by about 85 community leaders, including Orange County Supervisors Thomas F. Riley, Roger R. Stanton and Don R. Roth, and Msgr. John F. Sammon, vicar for pastoral and community affairs of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.

"We want to be clear in our message to our adolescents and the community," Boortz said. "We want to delay adolescent pregnancy and childbearing until an age they can make better decisions for their future."

In Orange County, about 3,200 girls under age 18 give birth every year, and more pregnancies are occurring at earlier ages, according to the ChildWatch research project, "Our Future at Risk: A Call for Action," released last year. An additional 6,000 a year obtain abortions, according to the Coalition Concerned With Adolescent Pregnancy.

Margie Fites Seigel, head of the local Planned Parenthood organization, called the recommendations "a terrific beginning." But, she said: "We also need to be realistic.

"For those teens who choose to be sexually involved, they absolutely must have access to birth control services to help prevent that pregnancy. And in the situation where the birth control fails, or they find themselves pregnant, they must have access to prenatal care and abortion services."

Many of the project's suggestions offer no specific ways of implementation, she said.

Some of the key recommendations are:

"Activating the medical community, both private and public, to increase access to health care for all adolescents." Although the report did not specify this, Boortz said coalition members believe that school-based health-care clinics should be launched to offer counseling and information about birth control. Birth control devices might also be available at a clinic, "but I'm not sure our county is ready to accept that," she said.

A hot line for teens "to have immediate 24-hour referral resources and crisis intervention."