Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Right to Life Ministry

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When Does Human Life Begin?
by Dr. Jerome Lejeune

The late Dr. Jerome Lejeune was an internationally known geneticist and a professor of genetics at the University of Rene Descartes in Paris. Dr. Lejeune received the Kennedy Award from the late President for his discovery that Down's syndrome (Trisomy 21) was due to an extra chromosome. Dr. Lejeune contributed greatly to genetic research to prevent and treat Trisomy 21. The following testimony was given by Dr. Lejeune before a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

When does a person begin? I will try to give the most precise answer to that question actually available to science. Modern biology teaches us 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 spermatozoa) that a new member of the species will emerge. Life has a very, very long history but each individual has a very neat beginning:
the moment of its conception.
 
To accept the fact that, after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or of opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention. It is plain experimental evidence.
 

When Does Human Life Begin?

Posted by Keith Pavlischek on August 18, 2008, 3:48 PM

Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”

Rick Warren: At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?
Sen. Barack Obama: Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

 

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