By Judie Brown
Famed geneticist Jerome Lejeune, the man who identified the chromosomal difference in people with Down syndrome, was always a champion of life. Several years ago, LifeSiteNews reported this heartbreaking story:
A young boy with Down syndrome burst into Dr. Jerome’s busy practice, his distraught face streaked with hot tears.
“Why are you crying?” Dr. Jerome asked him.
The boy, about 10, could not collect himself so the boy’s mother replied: “He saw the movie, and I couldn’t stop him crying.”
At that moment, the boy threw himself into the doctor’s arms and managed to say between sobs: “You know . . . they want to kill us. . . And you have to save us, because we are too weak . . . and we can’t do anything.”
Dr. Lejeune took up the challenge, and the rest, as they say, is history. But in the United States (and in other countries) these precious people are targeted. Let’s look at the state of Missouri as an example.
There is a war on Down syndrome babies in Missouri, as Planned Parenthood is suing the state because of its abortion restrictions. According to the Catholic News Agency, PP is “asking a judge to block all of Missouri’s numerous pro-life protections in light of the new amendment, most notably the state’s 2019 ‘trigger law’ that banned nearly all abortions in Missouri immediately after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
The article went on to say that Planned Parenthood challenged numerous “pro-life protections in Missouri, including the state’s 72-hour waiting period for abortions [and] the state’s ban on abortions done specifically for reasons of the race, sex, or a Down syndrome diagnosis of the baby.” (emphasis added)
In other words, Planned Parenthood detests motherhood in general, and in particular the cases of maternity caused by rape, incest, and so-called fetal abnormality. But they are not alone in this war against the innocents. In fact, babycenter.com tells visitors:
Other anomalies—such as neural tube defects, Down syndrome, and heart defects—can have lifelong consequences, requiring regular follow ups or surgeries. The severity of the anomaly and the prognosis for your baby’s future may play a major role in your decision about continuing with your pregnancy. Your providers can talk with you about the health outcomes for babies with the condition, and what the survival rates are for severe congenital anomalies.
The website goes on to list situations that can lead to a decision to abort the baby, without ever mentioning this obvious fact: An abortion kills a person. This statement is never found on such allegedly value-neutral Internet locations.
If Dr. Lejeune were alive today, he would encourage us to continue his fight for every baby. He would explain that whether or not the baby is “perfect” according to society’s standards, each one is a miracle of God’s creative power, deserving of love and nurture. As he once told us, there has never been a baby unloved by God.
Keeping his wisdom in mind, we know that the only way a Christian can navigate this world of death and destruction is by keeping the faith and witnessing to truth, for “it is out of love that we teach others about Christ [and] it is out of compassion that we strive to help others follow His laws.”
God is the Creator of life, and only He chooses when each life will be returned to Him.
Let us be inspired by Dr. Lejeune’s witness and driven by the wisdom of Saint Paul, who reminded the Corinthians and us that we dare not be noisy gongs: “And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”