Interim Staff:
Roe Canada: The True North in a Post-Roe World was released Jan. 12 on Vimeo. Produced and directed by Kevin Dunn of Dunn Media and Entertainment, the 80-minute documentary interviews Canadian and U.S. pro-life activists, academics, politicians, and even a retired abortionist, to examine whether Canada could have its own post-Roe moment of turning the legal and political tide of abortion-on-demand.
The two principal investigators are Josie Luetke, a columnist for The Interim and director of education and advocacy for Campaign Life Coalition, and Ruth Robert, Atlantic Canada regional coordinator for CLC. They interviewed experts to find answers to whether abortion could be ended in Canada. Among those interviewed were Canadian pro-life MPs Arnold Viersen and Cathay Wagantall, National Post columnist Barbara Kay, CLC president emeritus Jim Hughes, LifeSiteNews commentor Jonathan Van Maren, and retired Canadian abortionist Fraser Fellows. Among American pro-lifers interviewed were former abortuary worker Abby Johnson, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, Student for Life’s Kristan Hawkins, pro-life speaker Stephanie Gray Connors, Princeton professor of moral philosophy Robert George, and others.
Luetke has explained Roe Canada is a “blueprint” to follow the “successful approach of the U.S. pro-life movement” and that she hopes the documentary would “inspire more people to get involved in the cause and, ultimately, reignite the abortion debate in Canada.” Dunn called Roe Canada, “a roadmap to Canada’s version of the Dobbs victory” – referring to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The documentary makes clear that the Dobbs decision did not outlaw abortion, but rather returned the issue to state legislatures after 49 years of federalizing the decision under the Supreme Court’s Roe precedent set in 1973.
Seth Dillon said the only reason the American pro-life movement saw the reversal of Roe v. Wade was because it never gave up. Abby Johnson said that pro-lifers have been and must continue to be “bold and courageous.” Jason Jones, an American pro-life activist and filmmaker, said he vows to talk about abortion endlessly and annoy people with the truth and that “until you are so sick of it, that the only way to make it go away is to make abortion go away.”
Viersen, an MP, said “300 babies die every day” through abortion and “we can no longer sidestep the issue.” Gray Connors said Americans are more rebellious and Johnson complained that Canadians are too polite, the implication being that Canadian pro-lifers must be more willing to, in the words of Jason Jones, “upset the apple cart.”
Jeff Gunnarson, national president of CLC, said “the film addresses the issue of abortion from a Canadian perspective and features Canadian voices” and “is the kind of film that could create a cultural movement, inspiring a new wave of pro-life activism across the country.”
Dunn called the documentary his “love letter” to the Canadian pro-life movement.
It costs $20 to rent the documentary on Vimeo for 48 hours and Dunn said he hopes pro-lifers will donate to help the documentary reach schools and churches.
