The leader of 40 Days For Life says President Donald Trump has delivered for the pro-life movement — and that dire Republican predictions about the 2026 midterms are wrong.
Shawn Carney, president and co-founder of the international anti-abortion organization, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he’s confident Republicans will hold the House in November despite warnings from inside the party that Democrats have momentum.
“The average pro-life American in their living room thinks that Donald Trump is the most pro-life president ever,” Carney said. “And they’re correct.”
Carney made the comments while reflecting on the death of Dr. Haywood Robinson, a former abortionist who became one of the movement’s most powerful voices before dying of heart failure in late July at age 74.
“Haywood was very good at ringing the bell of ‘Look, blacks make up 13% of the U.S. population and nearly 40% of all abortions.'”
Robinson performed abortions for 14 years before his conversion. He later served as 40 Days For Life’s director of medical affairs and became a founding board member of the Life Education And Resource Network, described as the largest African-American evangelical pro-life ministry in the country.
The former doctor was particularly outspoken on abortion’s disproportionate impact on the black community. In 2019, black women accounted for 38.4% of U.S. abortions reported to the CDC, compared to only 33.4% for white women — despite blacks comprising just 13% of the population.
We are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend, Dr. Haywood Robinson, who died of heart failure this past weekend.
While our hearts are heavy with sorrow, they are also filled with joy. Haywood’s conversion is a testament to God’s mercy and one that brings hope to… pic.twitter.com/Q8fwPaBJrq
— 40 Days for Life (@40daysforlife) July 28, 2026
Robinson told CatholicVote in 2024 that when he was performing abortions, some hospitals conducted the procedure “no more than 50 yards” from the labor and delivery suite.
“So you’re killing babies in one part, and right on the same floor, you’re delivering babies,” Robinson said. “I recognize, retrospectively, that it almost makes you godlike — the power to kill on one hand, and the power of life on the other.”
Carney said Robinson “forced the issue” by confronting the medical establishment’s complicity in abortion — a reality often overlooked while politicians and media take the blame.
Four years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Carney stressed the movement is in a stronger position than ever.
He contrasted today’s landscape — where Generation Z is coming of age in a post-Roe America — to the Obama presidency, which he said “made pro-choice radical and cool.”
“Our kids are not because the playing field has changed significantly,” Carney told the outlet. “Obama’s presidency has aged horribly.”
Many staunch pro-life voters “enthusiastically” backed Trump in 2024, including some who were skeptical of him in prior cycles. Trump appointed three of the six justices who comprised the Court’s majority in Dobbs.
Some prominent pro-life leaders have recently called on Trump and the Republican Congress to take more aggressive action ahead of the midterms, particularly on the abortion pill mifepristone.
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins urged Trump’s FDA and EPA in June to “act swiftly right now today to pull mifepristone from the shelves,” stressing that pro-life voters “have to see a return on our investments.”
Carney, however, said he’s satisfied with Trump’s record so far.
He pointed to the president’s decision to expand the Reagan-era Mexico City Policy, which blocks U.S. taxpayer-funded global health aid from going to foreign groups that fund abortions, as well as his ban on medical research using aborted fetal tissue.
Carney confidently predicted Democrats “are not going to take the House” in November, arguing their embrace of transgenderism will sink them with swing voters.
He specifically cited James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas who made headlines after admitting his “love” of transgender children in a resurfaced 2023 podcast. Talarico later reversed course in June, coming out against child sex changes three months after winning his party’s nomination.
“Talarico is going to get absolutely obliterated,” Carney said.
The pro-life leader pushed back on Republicans warning that the midterms will favor Democrats — a pattern that typically holds for the party out of the White House.
“I think Republicans do this because they need to take a class from Nick Saban on how to win,” he said, referring to the legendary Alabama and LSU football coach. “But they get victories and then they just go dire. The pro-lifers do it too.”
“And I’m just — I’m not on that bandwagon.”
40 Days For Life describes itself as an internationally coordinated 40-day campaign that aims to end abortion through prayer, fasting, community outreach, and peaceful vigils outside abortion facilities. Its campaigns have reached 63 countries since the organization’s 2007 founding.
