As June 13 marks the 100th birthday of Jérôme Lejeune — the great scientist who discovered the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome, and worked indefatigably to love people with Down syndrome and care for them — writer and editor Fran Maier of the Ethics and Public Policy Center shared his own thoughts about this “great man,” and what he himself has learned from raising a child with Down syndrome.
Just ahead of this joyous occasion, where we remember Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune and his legacy, a viral story took over the internet when a YouTube influencer couple decided to broadcast their decision to kill their unborn child over a Down syndrome diagnosis.
“There’s a sadness about that couple that I thought about all morning,” Maier told Ashley McGuire and Betsy Fentress while appearing on EWTN Radio’s Conversations with Consequences.
A Double Tragedy
Maier read the statement from the couple and what struck him the most about the posting “was that, unintentionally probably, they were casting themselves as the victim: ‘We’re so sad, we’re so sorry.’ There’s a tendency in an indulgent culture to think that admitting this was a difficult problem, or that this was a bad thing
