June 25, 2022

Thought for Today

"What was the most morally difficult decision you had to make as a politician or practicing lawyer?"

That was the Question asked by David Marchese to John Grisham in The New York Times  Magazine June 26, 2022, pages  12-13

[Answer by John Grisham:] "I'll tell you a story. A 15-year-old girl in my church got pregnant. Her parents were devastated. Strict Southern Baptist. Small town. They were terrified people were going to find out. They came to me before they went to the minister because they were talking about adoption, the laws. Abortion terrified them. The father was 15 years old, too, so getting married was out of the question. I remember thinking. These people are leaning on me way too much.  I was a 27-year-old kid, one year out of law school. They think I'm wise. I'm not ready for this.  The parents weren't a whole lot older than I was - in their early 40's, I guess. They reached a point where they trusted me, and I'm thinking, I don't want to be in this room.  I finally  said, 'Let's get the minister involved. You people need help big time and I'm not giving it to you.'  My point is, I  realized that on the abortion issue, that was a decision to be made by that family - that girl and the parents and nobody else.  Nobody else should be in the room."

[Then David Marchese - author of this article - asks a question:] "Including the Government?" 

[Answer] "No government, no lawmaker, no judge. That's when I began to realize what's at stake with abortion. I'm opposed to abortion. I didn't want her to get an abortion, because the baby was going to be healthy - and the baby did make a great gift for someone else. She was able to leave and go live with an aunt in another town, have the baby well cared for, adopt it out.  She came back, the family rallied, the church rallied. Made the best of a bad situation, and somebody got a beautiful baby.  But there were times when I was thinking the quickest solution would be an abortion. I didn't says that, but it was a quandary I was in because I was getting way too much input.  That had a big impact on me as a lawyer, because you realized the influence you have.  The law degree is a powerful tool.  You can do a lot of good things. That's the fun part of being a lawyer, when you help people. I was not a very good lawyer."

"Why not?

"You've got to be kind of tough on the business end, and I could never say no to people who were in trouble, especially people I knew in the community. When you take everything that walks in the door, you're going to go broke. That was my downfall. At the same time, I had strong ambitions about being a skilled courtroom lawyer.  That was my goal, inspired by some great old-fashioned country trial lawyers in Mississippi i knew. I was never afraid of going to court. Most lawyers are.  A lot of them are afraid to try a case in front of a jury, but I thrived on that. I dreamed of being so good that people with really good cases - injury cases or wrongful-death cases or medical malpractice cases - would come to me and I would have the chance to make some money, which I never did."

"You said that you're opposed to abortion. For religious reasons?

"I've just never been able to stomach the idea of abortion on demand or women having multiple abortions just because they get pregnant.  And I've always though ht that late-term abortion, partial-birth  abortions were something that we should not tolerate because the fetus is viable. I've always been turned off by that notion of abortion. I guess it's probably religious grounds.  But at the same time, you don't know what you're going to do until you're in that situation. That's when it becomes a matter of choice. 

"What political positions did you hold when you were 28 that you don't hold now?  Death  penalty for sure.

"You used to believe in it? Big time. I'm in favor of tougher gun control. I am much more suspicious of the  police and prosecutors because I've seen so many wrongful convictions.  Also, race relations: I grew up in the Jim Crow South. A very segregated, racist society was almost my DNA.  It's a long struggle to overcome that and to look back at the way I was raised and not be resentful toward my parents and other people who helped raise me for their extreme racism. It was such a hard right-wing racist society that I grew up in. I've come a long way. I have a lot of friends and even kinfolk who never tried to move beyond the racism.  But I try every day. It's been an ongoing, gradual transformation. You know, we're all tribalists.  We all want to be around our people or believe in our people, and it's often too hard to get beyond that. It's still a struggle for me."