A distinguished guest slipped into the April board meeting of The Interim a few weeks ago. He was awaiting a ride to Toronto International Airport. Impeccably dressed in gray flannel suit, he sat with us at the board table, sipping coffee, breaking bread and joining in the discussions. When the topic of story ideas arose, someone suggested that we do an informal profile on our guest. Smiling, he joked, “I don’t think that would be a very interesting story. I don’t think anyone would read it.”
For a moment it seemed as if world renowned French geneticist, Dr. Jerome Lejeune, discoverer of the extra chromosome that causes Down’s Syndrome, was one of us. That’s probably how he wanted it. Even though he is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, he’s perfectly at ease with ordinary pro-lifers.
When our meeting ended, Jim Hughes, president of Campaign Life Coalition, suggested that I ride along with him and the 67-year-old researcher/physician to the airport. As we sped along the 401, Dr. Lejeune spoke easily and with gentle wit about his life and work. He was on his way to the Human Life International conference in Houston, having stopped in Toronto, where he addressed clergy and pro-lifers.
He recalled that after his breakthrough chromosome discovery in the 1950s, he began to realize its dark side. If the pre-born child could e diagnosed with Down Syndrome, then this early human would be the target for abortion. He was right. That’s why he now travels the world lecturing as an authority on prenatal genetics and as a scientist who emphasizes the humanity of the child in the womb. However, he’s also a physician and because of his discovery he feels an obligation to protect those with Down Syndrome. He says, “I am a natural advocate for my patient.”
As we wind out of Toronto, he asked what I wanted to know. I tell him, “something different.” He chuckles. “Well, I’ll tell you something different. I live in downtown Paris, not far from Notre Dame Cathedral, in a house that was built before America was discovered. It was built in 1418 and still has sits original roof.” Then he talks about life at home when he’s not traveling. He rides his bicycle back and forth to work every day and with scientific precision he calculates, “I get one hour of exercise daily because I travel four times and each way is fifteen minutes. You see that makes 60 minutes. The reason I travel four times is because I go home for lunch with my wife at noon.”
Dr. Lejeune and his wife, Birthe, who does a lot of volunteer work with unmarried mothers, have five grown children. Their three daughters are married with children. One son is now married and the other is a deacon, working with disabled children. Dr. Lejeune loves his work but will retire in two years. He doubts that many of “my pupils” (all pro-life) will succeed him as Professor of Fundamental Genetics. He says there is a prevailing pro-abortion influence among members of the selection committee at the University of Paris. Scattered all over, his pupils work in private institutions, unable to obtain university positions. Indeed, he knows well the high cost of being pro-life in academia.
In 1981, his university grants from the government were cut off because of a strong pro-abortion lobby. He retained his Chair however, because of tenure. Since then, he’s had to depend upon private funding to continue his genetic research specializing in children’s mental retardation. He mentions that recently his team developed a new drug that could correct autism (a neurological problem affecting speech). It has remarkable potential for treating and correcting autism in children before birth. He also mentions that because French government grants are so difficult to get, cancer researchers now list AIDS as their primary research project but, in fact, use the money for cancer research.
Born in Paris, Dr. Lejeune attended college and later studied medicine at the University of Paris, obtaining his PhD in science from the Sorbonne. He knew another student in one of his faculties, Dr. Etienne Beaulieu, who later researched and developed the RU-486 abortion pill.
Pausing in our chat, Dr. Lejeune reflects briefly on the history of medicine, recalling that for a millennium, medicine fought against disease and death and people responded in different ways. For instance, when rabies raged in the Middle Ages in Europe, some people killed those patients by suffocating them between two mattresses. Similarly, people stricken with the plague were often burnt alive in their homes. Then he reflects on RU-486.
“It is the first time in history that humans have marketed an anti-human pesticide and used it on other humans.” But he muses, “Those who go into history are those who walk on the side of life.”
Dr. Lejeune, known to be a devout Catholic, shyly avoids talking about his private devotion, saying, “Ask my guardian angel.” Then he confides, “Prayer life is the foundation for the liberty of the mind.” Raised in a religious family, his lawyer father and pious mother “thought it was important to be good Catholics.”
When asked who inspires him in his pro-life work, he promptly replies, “Pope John Paul II. He is a marvelous man of God.” Of his own pro-life struggles, he says, want to be an obedient Catholic and not split myself. Why should I be in contradiction of myself as a Catholic and as a physician who has taken the Oath of Hippocrates? The moral teaching is no different.”
His faith was reflected in his recent Toronto talks to the clergy and to pro-lifers, when he compared the study of genetics to the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord). Using worldly images, he related these spiritual insights. For example, he suggested that mothers could teach sex education “in a poetic, nice way” by using the story of Tom Thumb, the universally loved fairy tale, instead of “pseudo-scientific pieces of pornography that we find in textbooks and in society.” He says that children love the story of Tom Thumb because it is really their story, evoking a deep memory of when they were also the size of Tom Thumb, at the age of two months in their mother’s womb. “We must convince our contemporaries and young people about the existence of life in the womb [to counter abortion].”
As for saving babies from abortion in large numbers, he explains, “I’m a statistician by nature but I do not do stats on babies. One baby saved is a human life saved and not a number. If you save one, another one and another one – well that’s how I try to help – to save the one I see.”
In his world travels, Dr. Lejeune is encouraged despite “an international plot against life in all cultures from a world-wide assault on babies, the disabled and the old. Still, there are people against these things who have nothing to gain. However, they don’t give up because they have a respect for life,” he says.
