Letters

Courageous example

Arnold Jago

Contents - Apr 2006 - Buy a copy now Editorial: New cardinals: Benedict XVI signals his intentions - Michael Gilchrist Conscience: Dissenters' appeal to Rome 'a real hoot' says Cardinal Pell - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Books: Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church EarthSong: Green Christianity or a new paganism? - Michael Gilchrist Salesian Missions: Cardinal Pell visits East Timor - Michael Lynch SDB Creation: Intelligent Design and the war against God - Stephen Hitchings The Domestic Church: The Christian Family Movement: re-evangelising through families - Leslie Sammut Has just punishment had its day? - Fr Matthew Kirby 1973 Decree: A Fourth Rite of Reconciliation for Queensland? - AD2000 Music and Culture: Benedict XVI, Mozart and the quest for beauty - Mark Freer Letters: Religious education - Saskia Ebejer Letters: Action needed - Kevin McBride Letters: New Age - Yana Di Pietro and Magenta Ray Letters: Translations - George Simpson Letters: National suicide - Greg O'Regan Letters: Anti-life politicians - Robert Bom Letters: RU486 - Brian Harris Letters: Courageous example - Arnold Jago Letters: Inclusive language - Ottavio Kos Letters: Overseas priests - Peter Gilet Letters: Leadership needed - Tom King Letters: Church of England - Jim Turley Letters: Religious life - Barbara Chigwidden Books: Swear To God: The Promise and Powers of the Sacraments, by Scott Hahn - Jacinta Cummins (reviewer) Books: Mother Angelica, by Raymond Arroyo - Stephen Hitchings (reviewer) Books: Fr Martin D'Arcy: Philosopher of Christian Love, by H.J.A. Sire - Michael E. Daniel Events: Holy Week 2006: Classical Roman Rite in Melbourne Books: Stimulating reading from AD Books Reflection: The redeeming Cross: at the centre of Christian faith - Cardinal George Pell

Following the debate and voting on the abortion pill, RU486, we might ponder the example of a great man from the recent past.

Professor Jerome Lejeune was the French research doctor who discovered the chromosome causing Down Syndrome. In France in the 1960s there were doctors willing to abort pregnancies if the baby had Downs.

Lejeune opposed this whenever possible, including on national TV. His fame led to him being invited to address the United Nations.

His speech followed others expressing views favourable to abortion. So in his speech, Lejeune said, "Here we see an institute of health turning itself into an institute of death." That evening he phoned his wife, "This afternoon I lost my Nobel Prize."

His Downs discovery would normally have guaranteed a Nobel. But, sure enough, he never got it. Such honours are not for those who won't knuckle under to the mentality of death-for-convenience.

The walls of his medical school were defaced by graffiti: "Tremble Lejeune! The revolutionary student movement is watching you!" and "Lejeune and his little monsters must die."

When Lejeune died on Easter Sunday 1994, Pope John Paul II commented: "If God called him from this earth on the very day of Christ's Resurrection, it is difficult not to see a coincidence in this sign."

It would be handy if all doctors everywhere believed like Jerome Lejeune - and, like him, lived by their beliefs.

ARNOLD JAGO (DR)
Mildura, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 19 No 3 (April 2006), p. 15