For the past 10 years, Backline has provided unbiased support to pregnant women, offering access to information for the full spectrum of options — from maintaining a healthy pregnancy to adoption or abortion. With a dedicated but small staff and volunteers spread out over three states, the nonprofit organization maintains a resource-heavy website, provides professional trainings, and operates a popular phone line that fields more than 300 calls a month.

Now it's ready to do even more. Backline will be opening a brick-and-mortar all-options pregnancy resource center — the first of its kind in the U.S. — in Bloomington, Indiana. Slated to open around Valentine's Day of 2015, the center will be a judgment-free physical space where pregnant women can find support, information, and resources for every pregnancy path. Cosmopolitan.com spoke with Parker Dockray, Backline's executive director, about their new endeavor.

Backline has been successfully offering assistance and information via your toll-free Talkline and website for a long time. Why the move now to open an actual center?

We have dreamed for years of bringing Backline's model of unconditional and judgment-free support into a brick-and-mortar space. We are celebrating our 10th birthday this year, and the time feels right to embark on this next phase.

There is also a lot of interesting conversation happening now about how to move beyond the dynamics and rhetoric of "pro-choice" and "pro-life." There is more attention being paid to how abortion access relates to paid family leave, fertility treatment, and contraceptive coverage. Reproductive-justice advocates have brought a lot of needed attention to the intersections and oppressions that surround our reproductive decisions, and how this plays out in particular for communities of color and low-income women. It's time to reclaim the pregnancy center model and show that we can support pregnancy, parenting, adoption, and abortion, all under one roof.

What's Backline's vision for this new center?

The All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center will be a place where anyone can come to find support for their experiences with pregnancy, parenting, abortion, and adoption. First and foremost, we will provide the same unbiased and nonjudgmental peer counseling we've always offered, in-person as well as by telephone. In addition, we will offer free pregnancy tests, concrete resources like diapers and baby items, and referrals to the care and resources people need — whether that includes birthing support, abortion funding, adoption information, contraceptives, insurance coverage, child care, or all of the above. In addition to offering needed services, the Center will be a place where people can volunteer and get involved in their local community. More than just an office, we envision the center as a hub for all-options pregnancy support and activism.

Why is it so important to have a center that deals with abortion, adoption, infertility, pregnancy, and more all in the same place?

On a political and social level, these issues are siloed and disconnected as if they have nothing to do with each other. Yet in the reality of our everyday lives, they are all woven together in our messy, complex experience of being human. On any given day, Backline might hear from a mother of two who is considering abortion for the sake of the children she already has, a woman whose recent miscarriage has brought up feelings about an abortion she had years ago and never told anyone about, or someone for whom being adopted themselves adds layers of complexity to making a pregnancy decision. Often we are the first place where they have been able to talk about all of these experiences openly and honestly.

The fact is that at least half of all women in the United States will experience an unintended pregnancy, and 1 in 3 will have an abortion by the age of 45. Nearly two-thirds of women who have abortions have already given birth to at least one child, and many will go on to parent in the future. As Rachel Atkins famously said, "There are not 'women who have babies' and 'women who have abortions'; these are the same women at different points in their lives." It's time for our approach and services to reflect this reality.

How did you choose the location for the center?

We are starting in Bloomington, Indiana, in large part because we already have a solid and growing community there. Our program director, Shelly Dodson, who has been with Backline since 2007, is originally from Southern Indiana and has been working there for the past few years building a wonderful team of volunteers and allies. The interest and support we've received from the community has been phenomenal.

Since we announced the campaign, we have had inquiries from people in Ohio, Texas, Minnesota, Kentucky, Oregon, California, and other states who hope we will come there next! We want to take our time in Indiana to get established and learn what works best for the women who visit us. Then in the next few years we hope to start expanding to new locations.

You're raising the funds for the center via a crowdfunding platform. Why did you choose this method, and where will the money go?

Crowdfunding offers a chance to really see if people are interested in this model, if they think it's a good idea, and if they want to put their money behind it. Our goal is to raise $25,000, which would give us enough money to find a suitable space and rent it for a year, as well as pay for supplies and volunteer trainings, etc. We can't run the entire center on $25,000, but it will go a long way toward getting it off the ground. And showing that there is grassroots support for the project is a great way to attract foundations and other funders.

We have been so inspired by the enthusiasm and the heartfelt comments from people who have given money. One person said that they wished they had had a resource like this when they needed it. Another said she donated in honor of the daughter she placed for adoption against her will. Many dedicated their donations to all the women who have to make tough choices or to their daughters' futures. The campaign has really touched a nerve and that tells us that we are on the right track.

Have you experienced any backlash so far?

We have not, but we are prepared for that possibility. We know that some people unfortunately think it's controversial to support women who are considering or have had an abortion. But we are confident that most people really want to create a more compassionate and just world where we support everyone, without bias, judgment, or strings attached. And that's exactly what we want our All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center to do.

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