Posted on 01/04/2007 5:51:39 PM PST by Coleus
This article reports on a 1993 lecture the late French geneticist and pro-life pioneer Dr. Jerome Lejeune delivered at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. This story originally appeared in the January 1994 Columbia and is a companion article to the January 2007 "By Their Works" profile of Knight and pro-life entrepreneur Bill Schneeberger.
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 Davis, who had very different views on the disposition of seven frozen embryos fertilized prior to the couple’s separation. The woman sought custody so that she could one day carry a child to term. Her ex-husband ws 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 decision of Solomon and give the embryos to the parent who wanted them to live,” he recalled. Lejeune’s point was that an embryo has a human nature from the very beginning and should not be treated merely as “matter.” Convinced by Lejeune’s testimony, the judge ruled in the woman’s favor. But the state’s highest court later ruled that the embryos were not human beings. That decision was in turn upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court (an institution that Lejeune acknowledges he finds it difficult to hold in high esteem).
Jerome Lejeune, internationally acclaimed expert in the field of genetics, is one of the world’s foremost defenders of the dignity of human life — with emphasis on the word human — from its earliest moments. Professor of genetics at Rene Descartes University in Paris, Lejeune discovered the chromosomal abnormality that causes Down syndrome. For his research, he received the Kennedy Award and the William Allen Memorial Award from the American Society of Human Genetics. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the Royal Academy of Medicine in London, the Royal Society of Science in Stockholm and many other distinguished societies.
Lejeune was invited by the Knights of Columbus to present the Michael J. McGivney Lectures of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. 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 only human from the moment of conception, but unique as well. He told an attentive audience at Providence Hospital that modern biology teaches that ancestors are united to their progeny by a continuous material link, for it is from the fertilization of the female cell — the ovum — by the male cell — the spermatozoon — that a new member of the species will emerge.
Life has a very long history, Lejeune said, but each individual has a very neat beginning — the moment of conception. “The material link I am speaking about is the molecular thread of DNA,” Lejeune continued. “In each reproductive cell, this ribbon is cut into pieces — 23 in our species — and each segment is so carefully coiled and packaged — like a magnetic tape in a mini-cassette, that under the microscope it appears like a little rod, a chromosome. “As soon as the 23 paternally derived chromosomes are united through fertilization to the 23 maternally derived chromosomes, the full genetic information necessary and sufficient to express all the inborn qualities of the new individual is gathered,” Lejeune said. “Exactly as the introduction of a mini-cassette into a tape recorder will allow the restitution of a symphony, the new being begins to express himself as soon as he has been conceived.”
It is curious, Lejeune said, that natural sciences and the sciences of the law tend to speak the same language. “Of an individual enjoying a robust health, a biologist would say he has a good constitution. Of a society developing harmoniously to the benefit of all its members, a legislator would say that it has an equitable constitution.” The chromosomes are the table of the law of life, and when they have been gathered in the new being they fully spell out his personal constitution.
What is bewildering is the minuteness involved, Lejeune said. “It is hard to believe, though beyond any possible doubt, that the whole genetic information necessary and sufficient to build our body and even our brain, the most powerful problem-solving device, even able to analyze the laws of the universe, could be epitomized so that its material substratum could fit neatly on the point of a needle.”
“Even more impressive, during the maturation of the reproductive cells, the genetic information is reshuffled in so many ways that each conceptus receives an entirely original combination which has never occurred before and will never again. Each conceptus is unique and thus irreplaceable,” Lejeune said.
Because the life of everyone begins at the moment of conception, when the egg is fertilized by sperm, the single cell that results has a unique genetic code, a blueprint that contains “the whole necessary and sufficient information” defining all of that individual’s human characteristics. To explain the DNA within each cell that contains a person’s genetic code, Lejeune cited the bar code used to differentiate items in a supermarket. “Each of us has his own personal bar code” that can be recognized and studied using the high-powered instruments of modern science, he said. “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 his views because he is a Catholic or because he is a scientist. “I answered by saying that if the Church taught differently than it does about when life begins, then I would to, for scientific reasons, cease being a Catholic,” he reclled. He expressed his conviction that the Holy Spirit would not permit the Church to teach such a thing. “All scientists know when life begins,” Lejeune stated. “If the scientic establishment had told the truth, then the Supreme Court would not have said in Roe v. Wade that science does not know when life begins.”
Lejeune said Roe v. Wade is like Dred Scott, the 19th century court ruling that blacks were not human and therefore slavery was not wrong. “But Roe is worse,” he said. “The court certainly knew that blacks were human, but they chose to ignore the evidence. But at least that court 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 forthright. “Some scientists don’t want to be constrained from doing the things they want to do, so they avoid saying unpopular things,” he stated. “It’s a matter of pride, and prizes. The know they won’t get the grants if they tell the truth about when life begins.”
“There is a curious phenomenon at work in your country, sometimes called ‘political correctness,’” Lejeune continued. “You have so much freedom and yet you are no allowed to know the truth. In France we might have 40 million opinions about the dignity that should be accorded to the embryo, but no one denies the scientific truth that it is human.” Asked at one of the lectures about researchers at George Washington University who had just reported they had conducted experiments in the cloning of human embryos, Lejeune said that this event was not a breakthrough because scientists have had the technology for this for many years. It was instead a “symptom of a severe disease of spirit.” It is necessary to remember that not everything that can be done should be done, he stated. He said that genetic experimentatin should be for the purpose of prevention and cure of hereditary disease, and that the defense of life and the dignity of the human person must be of paramount concern in genetic research.
Research in cloning human embryos is unfortunate “because it gives the impression we are masters of our fate and can discard and delete as we see fit,” he said. “There is a terrible temptation to think that we are dealing with just matter and nothing more.” “When we respect people because they are big, beautiful, powerful, then Hitler and Mengele will have won the war,” he said. “I refuse to accept that.” “The trick is to continue with experiments that will cure diseases but without violating the embryo,” he said. “We need a touchstone to do this, and the only one which will suffice is found in Matthew 25, 40: ‘Whatsoever you do to these, the least of my brethren, you do also to me.’” When he reported this story, William Ryan was the director of the Office for Media Relations at the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, D.C.
While I think there is some basic truth to your position, it's really not that simple. There are people who are two genetic people (called "chimeras", "fused twins", and "mosaics"). You can find an interesting article on that here. Regular twins can also create problems for your statement, as can quite a few science fiction scenarios that might not remain fiction forever.
Basically, the truth is that it was the point where you became a distinct individual but the distinction isn't entirely genetic, nor does it have to be at all. For example, at the moment an embryo breaks in two to form identical twins is the point at which each becomes a distinct individual, even though neither is genetically distinct from the other. Then there are co-joined twins, which create some interesting tests for what defines one individual or two.
On the other end of the spectrum, blood transfusions, bone marrow transplants, organ transpants, forms of cancer, and even possibly gene therapy in the future may alter the genetics of a person long after they are born, in part or in whole. So basically, genetic consistency and distinctness can be a weak hook to hang an argument on.
I'm pointing this out not to disprove that a fertilized egg is a person. I believe that, too. I've simply been in some very deep and complex abortion debates and that's the sort of left hook that pro-choice debaters are going to throw at you if you tangle with the smarter ones. Be ready to deal with them just in case.
(As a final aside, chimeras are why we also should not assume that a negative genetic test in cases like sex crimes proves that a person is innocent -- a single person can have two sets of genes.)
though the egg has half of the needed parts, it's still just living cells, where the sperm is truly alive with a purpose and drive and the ability to move and reason on it's own. when that enters the egg it is becomes whole... and alive with a purpose of growing and maturing to full term.
if that's not life... what is???
When the kids get their own apartments and move out.
Compare this wonderful definition of the beginning of life to the sickening things that are happening around embryo research. Lifesite news reports that the Canadian Institute of Health Research has approved a project for stem cell research which will use 'donated fresh embryos', meaning embryos which have been created in a lab, not been frozen, but rejected for implantation.
I live in East Tennessee, not far from the courtroom where this hearing took place. Having studied this case and the testimonies (I used Le Jeune's testimony in a book), I'm now convinced that had this wonderful geneticist centered and focused his argument upon the difference between an organ (or subunit thereof) and an organism, this defense of embryo-aged human beings would have been a world changing one, stopping the degredation into the pit of dehumanizing humans at their earliest age.
The safer word is, after all, not individual but person. However, there is a deep-rooted prejudice, based on Cartesian philosophy I think, that personality is simply a function of the brain, which is supposed to generate thought independently of the rest of the body. That is also simplistic, but scientists love to oversimply things just as we all do.
I wonder, do you know when the human spirit takes up residence with the alive embryo or fetal aged human organism? [Note please, I'm not asking about the soul of life, I am asking about the human spirit.] Do you know who might know the answer to this?
That was not an umbilical cord; it was a bungee cord. They will be back.
And what of human spirit?
Not TRUE! They all come back, at least mine did. I'm getting fat and decrepit. I think my life is nearly over. There's even talk of taking in the in-laws.
I'm not even sure I believe in "Life After Birth" anymore.
I think I was aborted at birth and came back as an ATM.
Soul is spirit, the nonmaterial part, or aspect, of the human person. Materialists reduce everything to chemical reactions, which is, IMHO, just question begging, because chemistry is a human creation.
“The trick is to continue with experiments that will cure diseases but without violating the embryo,” he said.Indeed.
I think they also --deliberately-confuse legal personhood with the person. Positivism allows us to define and redefine things to suit our needs. Legal personhood IS something that the law can create: one can arbitrarily say that a corporation is a person because it is useful to say this. Our system allows the courts the power to vest meanings in words, meanings that sometimes contract the evidence of our senses. The court says that a child of human being is not a human simply because it is useful for the child not to be human. Talk about priestcraft!
It's not a human life. It's part of the mother. It's not alive. Etc.
Pro-life person proves it is human, is alive, isn't part of the mother, and so on.
Well, the woman has a right to abort it anyway, because it's a parasite. (or some variation of that theme)
Pro-life person demonstrates other examples of parental responsibility and so forth, based on the already proven premise that it's the equivalent of a baby.
But it's not a human life. It's part of the mother. It's not alive. Etc.
They never actually concede a point and simply recycle the same arguments round and round in a big circle. They do the same thing with life, personhood, etc. They can waste a whole lot of time on silly tangents like neuron growth, myleanation, etc. that ultimately have nothing to do with personhood. The reality is that many people pick a point where they want the embryo or fetus to be a person and then work their way into an excuse to make it true.
The way around that is to stick to small, atomic, easy to defend steps and then snap them all together into a tight package that they can't knock down at the end. Once you understand all the small parts and the role they play in the whole, it becomes easy to spot when they try to change the subject, avoid a point, and so on. Making sweeping statements are good for an overview but not very good at changing minds, in my opinion. In fact, one thing I despise about the modern talk radio and talk television formats is that they confine arguments to maybe 10 minutes but often closer to 2 minutes and you can't make a comprehensive and persuasive argument about abortion in that short of a period of time. The best you can do is preach to the choir.
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