Jerome Lejeune is the Frenchman who discovered the chromosomal error responsible for causing Down syndrome, half a century ago. Lejeune, who died in 1994, was a devout Catholic, and he was aghast when he realized his discovery would lead to prenatal tests and abortions. In his view, this was eliminating the patients instead of treating them. Someday, he felt certain, a cure would be found. “We will beat this disease,” he wrote. “It’s inconceivable that we won’t. It will take much less intellectual effort than sending a man to the Moon.”
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