A saint for Down Syndrome

Bill McGurn in today’s New York Post has an excellent column on Dr. Jerome Lejeune:

Lejeune was the French geneticist whose breakthrough came in 1958, when he discovered the extra chromosome on the 21st pair that causes Down syndrome…

Trisomy 21 families could use a patron saint. Not someone who pitied them. Someone who appreciated their most salient feature, which is not their third chromosome but their full humanity. In his own day, in addition to his research, Dr. Lejeune treated thousands — and his daughter says he called each by name…

So what would a patron saint for those with Down syndrome offer? A reminder that there are truths outside the microscope, and among them is this: The special gift of the weak and the imperfect is to teach us how to love.

Read the rest here.