How the Church Has Changed the World

13 The Least of These Do no harm Down Syndrome is caused by an abnormality of the twenty-first chromosome of the human genetic makeup, also called trisomy 21. The man who discovered it once stood before President Kennedy to receive an award for medical accomplishments, for the good of mankind. The year is now 1969, and the same man, the French physician and scientist Jérôme Lejeune, is speaking in San Francisco to the American Society of Human Genetics. Dr. Lejeune had hoped that his research into genetic abnormalities, in the field of cytogenetics, which he did so much to establish, would lead doctors to pursue cures; instead he watched in dismay as they pursued methods of early detection for the sake of what was euphemistically described as “not allowing a pregnancy to continue.” It is always easier to kill than to cure. So he delivered his address, “On the Nature of Men,” wherein he adopted at first, with trenchant irony, the pose of one who believed that only technicians and governmental officials could determine what kinds of abnormalities would warrant preventive destruction, to alleviate the burden upon society. The “technical” approach, he said, would best be served by a “National Institute of Death,” which would:

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