January
When does life begin? by William Ryan
This article reports on a 1993 lecture the late French geneticist pro-life pioneer Dr. Jerome Lejeune delivered at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington DC. This story original appeared in the January 1994 Columbia.
Dr Jerome Lejeune, the french geneticist, still marvels at the circumstances that caused him to travel from his laboratory in Paris to a Tennessee courtroom to give expert testimony about when life begins.
The 1989 case involved a divorced couple, mary Sue and Junior Divis, who had very different views on the disposition of seven frozen embryos fertilized prior to the couple's seperation. The woman sought custody so that one day she could carry a child to term. Her ex-husband opposed; he no longer wanted to become a father.
Contacted by the woman's representatives and touched by her plight. Lejeune testified there is indisputable scientific evidence that human life begins at conception. "I asked the Judge to make the dicision of Solomon and give the embryos to the parent who wants them to live", he recalled. Lejeune's point was that the embryo has a human nature from the very beginning and should not be treated merely as "mater".
Convinced by Lejeune's testimony, the judge ruled in the woman's favor. But the state's higher court later ruled that the embryos were not human beings. That decision was in turn upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court (An institution Lejeune acknowledges he find difficult ot hold in high esteem)
Lejeune was invited by the Knights of Columbus to present the Micheal J McGiviney Lectures of the John Paul II Institute in October. In his talks he elaborated on his findings concerning the origins of life and the respect owed to each person, who he emphasized, is not onlt human from the moment of conception, but unique as well.
Life has a very long history, Leneune said, but each individual has a very neat beginning-the moment of conception.
"So the teaching of the Church on how we should respect all forms of life is also good biology," he said.
At a conference in Bucharest some years ago, Lejeune was asked if he holds because he was Catholic or because he is a scientist. "I answered by saying that if the Church differently than it does about life begins, then I would to, for scientific reasons, cease being a Catholic", He recalled. He expressed his conviction that the Holy Spirit would not permit the Church to teach such a thing.
"all scientist know whe life begins', Lejeune stated. "If the scientific establishment had told the truth, then the Supreme Court would not have said in Roe vs Wade that science does not know when life begins".
Lejeune said, "Roe vs Wade is like Dred Scott, the 19th century court rulling that blacks were not human and therefore slavary was not wrong. "But Roe is worst", He said. "the courts certainly knew that blacks were human, but they chose to ignore the evidence. But the courts did not pretend, as the Roe court did, that the evidence did not exist".
So why, he was asked, did the scientific community keep quiet? His answer was characteristically forthsight. "Some scientists do not want to be constrained from doing the things they want to do, so they avoid saying unpopular things", he said. "It is a matter of pride and prizes. They know that they will not get the grants, if they tell the truth about when life begins."
There is a curiuos phenomenon at work in your contry, sometimes called "political correctness", Lejeune continued. "You have so much freedom and yet you are not allowed to know the truth. In France we might have 40 million opinions about the dignity that should be accorded the embryo, but not one denies the scientific truth that it is human."