Dr. Jérôme Lejeune was a French physician and genetics researcher who courageously defended the unborn lives of people with Down Syndrome.

He found the third little mark on the 21st chromosome, known as trisomy 21, in his Paris laboratory in 1959. He was hoping to find a cure for Down Syndrome. Instead his discovery led to a medical holocaust, with national health systems paying enormous sums of money to track down and eliminate these children before they could be born. The tragic fact that his discovery was used for the opposite purpose for which it was intended propelled him to the forefront of the beginning of the pro-life movement.



Lejeune, a candidate for sainthood, was a devoted Catholic, and was heartbroken when his scientific discoveries started to be used to screen fetuses for Down Syndrome and kill those that carried it.

Pope Paul VI created the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1974. This gave Professor Lejeune the chance to work with the international scientific world on questions of science and ethics. His meeting with Cardinal Wojtyla in Poland in 1975 began a strong friendship. On a visit to France in 1997 Pope St. John Paul II insisted on praying before the tomb of Jérôme Lejeune, in the company of his wife and children and grandchildren.

Lejeune traveled worldwide, advocating for the humanity of the human person from his or her earliest moments, at a time when more and more countries moving in the direction of “perfect people only.” Dr. LeJeune was Invited to America to receive the highest distinction in genetics for his work, the William Allen Memorial Award. He saw the direction in which genetics was headed and he knew what was expected of him at this event.

Courageously, he decided to use the opportunity to speak out in defence of “his patients”—the children and their parents who were seeking him from all over the world to seek his advice and help with their family member who had Down Syndrome. Many of his colleagues urged him to address the scientific questions only, and leave the moral questions alone. But Lejeune knew the cost involved full well. For one thing, it would mean losing the Nobel Prize. He knew this when he spoke: “For thousands of years, medicine has striven to fight for life and health against disease and death. Any reversal of this order would entirely change medicine itself.” His meteoric rise was curtailed by his defense of the dignity of the unborn child.

Later that night he wrote to his wife, “Today I lost my Nobel Prize.” Lejeune was ostracized by the scientific, medical and political elite in France. His research funds were withdrawn. While in the 1960s doctors had been proud to belong to the "Lejeune team," in the 1970s it was social suicide. During the French pro-abortion campaign in 1975 "Death to Lejeune" was scrawled on the walls of the Sorbonne. His own children witnessed the attacks against their father.

As our culture demanded more and more “perfect” people, Lejeune honored the life of those born with disabilities and differences. He revealed the intrinsic value of children born with Down Syndrome to their parents and families. He helped remove any shame the parents of these babies felt when their children were born, with all sorts of explanations offered including the fault of the parents, and reminded them of the gift of life from God.

In 1989, the King of Belgium, King Baudouin, invited Professor Lejeune to visit as a representative of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The Belgian Parliament was debating the legalization of abortion. The king, a Catholic, refused to sign for it. At the end of their meeting, the king asked Professor Lejeune, "Would you mind if we pray together?" These two men of remarkable moral strength are now both candidates for beatification by the Catholic Church.

Today the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation continues his work since his death in 1994.