Roe v. Wade can happen here, says film director of ‘love letter’ to Canada’s pro-life movement

For Canada’s beleaguered pro-life community, one question looms large a year after the Dobbs ruling that overthrew Roe v Wade, the 1973 American Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Could a similar event happen here? According to award-winning filmmaker Kevin Dunn, the answer is a resounding “yes,” but it will take work. 

Dunn told The B.C. Catholic that his latest film, Roe Canada: The True North in a Post-Roe World, “provides a roadmap to Canada’s version of the Dobbs (Roe v. Wade) victory.” 

“The film brings a sincere message of hope  – but also accountability,” he said in an email. “No one believed that Roe v Wade would ever be overturned in the USA: a country which killed over 63 million unborn babies since 1973. And yet it happened.”

Dunn’s biggest takeaway from filming his “love letter to the Canadian pro-life movement” was hope for the future and the need for some tough love.

“This film is a wake-up call for all of us,” said Dunn. “Including me! We as a nation, as a church, are obliged to hold fast to the hope that Canada will one day respect life from conception until natural death. We are obliged to put our faith into action.”

In the movie, pro-life activist and author Stephanie Gray Connors, formerly of Vancouver, says in an interview that Canadian history creates a problem the pro-life movement needs to address if it is to make any progress in Canada.

“Canada is still a monarchy in a sense because it is under the King,” Connors told the interviewer. “The United States rebelled. That shows the differences in our histories. One, kind of being compliant, you could say, and going with the flow, and one being rebellious by cutting ties and saying, ‘I’m going to make change.’ That is ingrained in the American blood. I think that is needed in any movement.”

This belief in change and progress was the motivating force that helped American pro-life activists endure through the decades leading up to the June 2022 overthrow of Roe v. Wade. Inversely, it seems, apathy is one of the principal roadblocks for the pro-life movement in Canada.

Yet, Dunn said he was struck by the number of young pro-lifers he encountered through his travels across Canada and the U.S., and he believes the film shows that young people can rise above the propaganda the abortion industry has given them about what constitutes a human person.

The film’s protagonists, Canadian pro-life activists Josie Luetke and Ruth Robert, both in their 20s, “prove the movement is not just alive and well but thriving,” he said. 

“Like so many young people, they see the science that proves life truly begins at conception, with the creation of an individual with unique DNA,” he said. They “see the recognition of personhood in the womb as the single most important social justice issue of our time.” 

Dunn hopes people will donate to help create an educational program for parishes and schools. For more information or to donate, visit roecanadafilm.com.

Roe Canada: The True North in a Post-Roe World can be streamed on demand from vimeo.com/ondemand/roecanada. 

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