Why shouldn’t abortion, adoption, and childbirth services all exist within the same building? That’s the question asked by the documentary Reconception, which goes inside the first full-spectrum pregnancy center in the U.S. Ahead of the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade this Friday, the film explores a revolutionary concept: a center that recognizes and validates the full range of women’s reproductive experiences.
The first pregnancy center to do so is All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center, which opened in May 2015 in Bloomington, Indiana. This moving portrait, directed by Yoruba Richen, follows one volunteer, Angelique Saavedra, as she helps develop the center’s abortion-doula program.
The center’s key component is counseling women on both abortions and childbirth. “These needs are not separate from each other,” says All-Options managing director Shelly Dodson. “People need both their diapers and a referral for an abortion, at the same time.” This is a vital and often-ignored truth: 61 percent of women who have an abortion are already mothers of at least one child.
The film, which is supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, also examines the divisions among All-Options and two other centers located within a few miles of each other in town: the religious, pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Center and a Planned Parenthood, where All-Options refers women for abortions. Watch the documentary to see how this one pregnancy center is redefining our understanding of reproductive care.
