By Maria V. Gallagher, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
With pro-life U.S. Senator JD Vance propelled to the GOP nomination for Vice President, I felt compelled to watch the movie inspired by his life, Hillbilly Elegy.
A powerful story, the film chronicles Vance’s rise from being reared dirt poor in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, to the heights of Yale Law School.
I was moved by the resolute determination of his grandmother—”Mamaw—that JD make something of himself, overcoming the challenges of a chaotic home life and financial troubles to achieve academic excellence.
I felt a common bond with him. Just like JD’s Mamaw, my foster grandmother—the woman I knew as Grandma Hazel—had her family roots in Kentucky but migrated north to Ohio. She was a comforting, stabilizing force in my life, and her homespun wisdom carried me through some dark days.
In 2020, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio, in his victory speech he said to Mamaw, “You’re not always going to agree with every vote that I take, and you’re not going to agree with every single amendment that I offer in the United States Senate, but I will never forget the woman who raised me.”
The movie, directed by Ron Howard, debuted in 2020. It was rightly hailed for expertly capturing the culture of a people fiercely family-oriented but plagued by profound troubles such as addiction and violence. Actresses Glenn Close and Amy Adams provide riveting portrayals of JD’s grandmother and mother, respectively, as chronicled in the New York Times best-selling memoir upon which the movie is based.
If you have people from Appalachia in your family tree, you are likely to feel a kinship with the film’s cast of characters. If your family has been touched by the trauma of addiction, you will likely recognize the truths which the movie tells.
The film is rated R for coarse language and violence. But in the end, Hillbilly Elegy is a story of triumph of hope over adversity and demonstrates the indomitable nature of the human spirit.
It is a tear-drenched testament to the power of love and resilience and shows that each human life has priceless value.