Throughout the filming, Aronson had to maintain a kind of mental ledger sheet to ensure that she had strong and persuasive material from both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of her controversial topic. She also had to be aware of the fine line between giving a group a fair hearing, and becoming an instrument of its propaganda. So she worked hard to flush out and identify hidden agendas where they existed. “Any advocacy group is going to use us in a sense,” acknowledges Aronson. But she wanted to be conscious of when that happened.

One strategy was to pose questions which would compel revealing answers. Thus, when she was in the Center for Pregnancy Choices, Aronson questioned specifically whether the clinic, if asked, would refer a woman for abortion. The answer was no. On the other hand, when interviewing pro-choice lawyer Bonnie Scott Jones, Aronson was struck by one term the group used: “trap” laws (laws which the movement felt “trapped” abortion clinics because to follow them was close to impossible). When Aronson asked whether the term was chosen for its public relations value, the answer was yes.

Aronson likewise sought balance after the Center for Pregnancy Choices allowed her to film a powerful scene in which a nurse administered a sonogram to show a woman what her fetus looked like. In a separate interview, Aronson made certain to ask a pro-choice spokesperson about the sonogram procedure. This ensured she had video giving the pro-choice view that, absent a medical need, there was no reason for a pregnant woman to have a sonogram. “A pro-choice person would say [the sonogram is] manipulative,” says Aronson. “I tried to present both sides because there are strong arguments on both sides, and actually both arguments are reasonable when you think about it from their perspective.” She clarifies:

The pro-life perspective is that if you show a woman that she has an 11-week-old fetus and she sees the movement, and that convinces her to keep the fetus, then isn’t that a good thing? Whereas a pro-choice person would say she didn’t come in and know she was going to get a sonogram; there is no medical reason for it. So why are you offering a sonogram except to convince a woman not to have an abortion, which is what she really wanted to do?

“I never had a film like that before,” says Aronson, “where reasonable people on both sides just saw things so completely differently. It’s a real exercise in journalism because you have to be thinking [all the time] about being fair.”