The Canadian pro-life community, specifically the subjects profiled in The Catholic Register’s Lives Lived for Life special newsmagazine, embraces Donald Trump's impending return to the White House.

Trump’s triumph over Vice President Kamala Harris, and the forces backing her, on Nov. 5, inspired Deacon George Jurenas, who serves St. Joseph’s Parish in Mississauga, Ont., to reflect upon Jephthah of Gilead leading Israel to victory in The Book of Judges.

In the biblical texts, Jephthah is described as an “outlaw” but is elevated to enact great deeds in God’s name because, in Jurenas’ words, “sometimes it takes a rogue to defeat a strong enemy that surrounds you.”

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Jurenas declared that “this week it took a ‘Donald Trump’ to defeat the extreme progressive left and its policies and initiatives against the destruction of the nuclear family, our faith in God and our battle against the culture of death.” He added that “everything that I dislike about him is far outweighed by his pro-life, pro-family policies.”

Kevin Dunn, the award-winning Canadian Catholic filmmaker, reacted to Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College win similarly to Jurenas. The director of Roe Canada: The True North in a Post-Roe World remarked on how “throughout history, God has employed the most unlikely people to do His work,” citing King David as an example.

“In our day, it’s no different,” stated Dunn. “No one expected the enshrined Roe v. Wade ‘right’ to abortion be overturned. Yet God used one Donald John Trump to help make it happen. Let’s pray his return to the Oval Office will be dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable among us.”

Mary Wagner, who was imprisoned for over six years of her life because of her willingness to breach bubble zones to counsel women seeking an abortion, admitted that asking to weigh in on the outcome of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election “is difficult.” In discussions centred around politics and laws, she thinks about Psalm 146:3: “Put no trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save."

However, Wagner said she “sighed in relief” when she learned about the result being aware of what may have come if Harris prevailed.

“I am praying that Donald Trump will honour his promise to ‘pardon’ my friends who are currently serving federal sentences for their peaceful efforts to love our abandoned brothers and sisters,” added Wagner.

The 50-year-old pro-life champion alluded to prominent U.S. anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy and several others being sentenced to prison terms this past May because of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) group’s October 2020 cordon of the Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C. The blockade lasted several hours and was live-streamed on Facebook. They used locks, chains and linked arms to block access to the facility.

Police later found five fetuses in Handy’s home in March 2022. The 31-year-old was sentenced to five years imprisonment, three of which will be on supervised release. Her comrades received sentences between 21 and 27 months.

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Maria McCann, who co-founded and volunteers with London Against Abortion, said Trump’s victory could reverberate north of the border by gifting Canadian pro-lifers with “increased opportunities to discuss abortion with our neighbours post-election,” but this will also spark “heated rhetoric and heightened emotion” in response.

“Rather than getting caught up in partisan divisions, we must laser-focus on our core message: the humanity of pre-born children, and the gruesome inhumanity of abortion,” said McCann, who also serves as a field representative with 4LifeLondon. “We also need to engage in conversations with compassion rather than contempt, knowing that each person we speak to has likely been wounded by abortion in some way."

Jeff Gunnarson, the national president of Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the pro-life movement, is also hoping for Trump’s win to create powerful and life-affirming shockwaves.

“Mr. Trump’s first presidency made unprecedented gains for the global pro-life movement that are still being felt today, such as the overturning of Roe through his appointment of pro-life justices to the Supreme Court and his defunding of international abortion organizations and bureaucracies,” said Gunnarson. “Along with Vice-President-elect JD Vance, who is strongly pro-life, we look forward to an administration that will make more gains for preborn humans, gains that will trickle up here in the ‘true north’ to help create a culture of life.”

Though additional promises to the pro-life movement or personal statements about his professed pro-life philosophy were seldom heard during his many campaign rallies and speeches, Trump still potently contrasted Harris as the culture of life candidate. Protecting and expanding the right to kill pre-born humans was arguably the animating force of Harris’ 107-day campaign.

During his nearly two years on the trail this time around, Trump spoke about how the Roe v. Wade overturn, made possible by his appointment of three Supreme Court justices, put the abortion question back in the people’s hands.

There were abortion access votes included on the ballots of 10 different states. Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York voters chose measures that protected abortion rights. Florida and South Dakota constituents did not pass abortion rights amendments, while Nebraska voters upheld the state ban on this procedure after the first trimester.

Trump’s promise to not sign a 15-week national abortion ban, coupled with calling the six-week “heartbeat” bills passed by Florida, Iowa and Georgia “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake” did spark a backlash from the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group in April 2023.

“President Trump’s assertion that the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion solely to the states is a completely inaccurate reading of the Dobbs decision and is a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold,” said SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser at the time.

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However, Trump made promises intended to cultivate a culture of life. His Agenda 47 manifesto includes a commitment to “provide young parents with ‘baby bonuses’ to help launch a new baby boom” instead of relying on immigrants to sustain the population. He also intends to raise the child tax care credit to $5,000. Additionally, he plans to again encourage adoption over abortion during his second term.

Abortion stood out as the No.1 issue in 2024 of 14 per cent of voters, which lagged behind democracy (34 per cent) and the economy (31 per cent). Conversely, abortion ranked as the chief concern of 27 per cent of the electorate during the 2022 midterms.