I'd like to first of all thank you all for coming tonight
Feel free to come on in and and get closer, it's a nice intimate group, we've got here
 
For those who don't know my name is Will Waldron I'm the executive director for Divine Mercy care and
I'm more than pleased to see all of you here. This is a very special evening for  for everyone involved
And I want to thank all the volunteers who have helped with our registration. who have helped day in and day out at Divine Mercy Care
really pushing and advancing our mission
And our mission really quickly is threefold it's to serve
And we do that by raising funds to underwrite the cost of care for women in need at Tepeyac OB/GYN
That's probably what you're most familiar with many of you
And we also inspire and educate and this is the portion of what we're doing tonight, and that is to educate
those
among this community about pro-life issues that are out there and
And the third thing we do is unify both locally and nationally and what we're trying to do
locally and nationally unify the medical pro-life movement
And I think we'll all look around and agree that there's a lot of great pro-life causes out there that are working hard to
to
respect life till from natural conception to the
Natural death and what we're failing to realize is that if we don't work together
We where we're not
Advancing it as fast as we can and as best as we can so
We're actively those are the three aspects of what we're doing
I don't want to introduce to you very briefly very quickly Chaney Mullins. Who is our development coordinator
and Mark Flores
Mark Flores is our business manager
Donna Johnson who's in the back very humbly helps us out in a number of ways
And I can't thank her enough for all the work that she puts in
and Sharon Chang is
Around here in the office
With us at one of our communications people
we're certainly blessed to have all of our of the staff helping us
I Also want to introduce to you a gentleman who's really made it his life work to to advance the cause in advance
Heroically
30-plus years ago
And he'll tell you his story, but
Dr. John Burchalski has been an influential part of my family's life personally
Was was that reason why my wife as a single woman wanted to go to a
pro-life doctor and wanted to have
Medical care that was in line with her faith
How important that was to her and her confidence in her ability and that's not to be underwritten or
Set aside it's such a vital aspect of of who
Doctor is and and all the doctors Dr.
Fisk I see is in the back in and his wife Sue Fisk who also work at Tepeyac and
Dr. Anderson I know is here and Dr.  Cvetkovich and we're very blessed to have these doctors
this is not a light undertaking that they take in every day, but
Just want to thank you all again for coming and without further ado Dr. John
Thank you all so much, and I'm really here
On this second
educational lecture series sponsored by Divine Mercy care and Tepeyac OB/GYN
I am representing
My friends who are doctors and midwives and staff with us at the Tepeyac
OBGYN facility, I'm here with them and on the opening act for Mrs. Lejeune
It's
it is really it's a privilege so bonsoir and
Bienvenue good evening and welcome
it's an educational conversation entitled Down syndrome as a pro-life cause and
It's really featuring
Madame Bertha Lejeune the wife of the renowned doctor and geneticist and servant of God Jerome Lejeune
the father of modern genetics and the founder of the extra 21st chromosome causing Down syndrome and
So we in our practice have had the privilege of delivering
Simon and
Michael in the back as they represent many of you, and we are so grateful that we are here tonight to begin a conversation
about building
On this foundation of love and care for all of our human family
so I've known about Dr. Lejeune since the late 1980s and
So in my psychosis late at night when writing in my diary
I kind of whispered a brother Jerome, and I say it out loud sometimes, and it catches myself. I say you know Jerome
You and I married up
Bertha is Danish
Carolyn is Czech
They both love the ocean. They both grew up near the ocean. We definitely married up
He,  Dr. Jerome Lejeune has been a inspiration and hero of mine since since then and
I met this larger-than-life, but humble scientific giant in
1989
But I'm going to talk about that in a minute
For any of you who want to know more about him the man in the family
Life is a blessing was written by their daughter Clara in
1997 so
Tonight we have a conversation tonight. We have the privilege of having a conversation with his
meilleure moitié, his better half
She's here with us tonight to give us an insight into their life fighting for the dignity of their patients
while also seeking the cure for trisomy 21 Down syndrome
Which he discovered the cause of in 1958
Can you imagine and he spent a whole year mrs. Lewin madam Lejeune spoke to us about today? He spent a whole year
Canada the United States showing people
This this is what it is
They shrugged their shoulders
1958 1960 think about our country at that time so merci beaucoup to our visitors from Paris
Merci beaucoup to our audience coming from many states many places tonight
And also merci beaucoup - Dr. Jerome
Incarnation aliy and vicariously through his better half Madame elision coming all the way from Paris
We need to continue to pray for her
she's gonna be in Miami at the end of this week and
As she's mentioned to me that when she stares at his picture and those beautiful blue eyes on his
Refrigerator she continues to say you know Jerome you left us a lot of work to do
So as many of you know my name is john grochowski and I come from Iceland
But I'm gonna explain that here in a minute
I'm a 57 year old OBGYN married to a wonderful lady
with two tremendous boys
Some who I've been trying to pawn off tonight to people in the audience
We believe in arranged marriages at our house
I want it to be an excellent competent and qualified OB Julian I
Have the privilege of working with men and women in my practice who have the highest of educational standards and
We've all gravitated through the grace of God to
work at Tepeyac
Ob/gyn formerly known as the Tepeyac Family Center
We all wanted to eradicate disease
So I had to provide what women wanted right so during my residency, I performed abortions on
demand
They asked I did it and
That included on some normal kids who had a strange and a slightly abnormal genetic screen
Even with those who've had disabilities
So I can't throw stones tonight because I've been on both sides of this issue
But I now have the privilege of working at Tepeyac ob/gyn
there's five other professionals there five Doc's one Midwife and
the staff of 18
We provide care for women pregnant and not women in crisis pregnancies care for the menopausal
care for the teens good surgery
cooperative hormone replacement
integrated health care body soul and spirit I
Remember many years ago Dan Fisk
And I talked about some of the data because I was presenting at Congress for
on Down syndrome the genetic testing that was being pushed earlier and earlier and
We kicked that around in the office on our Tuesday meetings
Ladies and gentlemen tonight care
care
not cure always
but care and curing while we're tempting the cure is the
Answer to the abomination of ending the lives of sick children in the wombs of their mothers
We must all and we are just by your presence here
Just by these moms that continue to build families and love unconditionally
This is the sign of contradiction and the witness to the truth. That's the inspiration that was for me
Lived out by dr. Jerome and his lovely bride
He was the most renowned geneticist in the world
He spoke for the United Nations on genetic effect the radiation effects on genetics
He received the Kennedy prize 1962 and at a very big meeting
He basically presents his belief that we shouldn't end their lives like we should try to
Cure them, so they can grow up to be geneticists and treat themselves
That's him
He was taken out he was taken out that evening
He comes off and rather than
rather than caring
this was the eugenic ending of the lives of children with genetic conditions in the wombs of their mothers and that night cost him the
Nobel Prize
He has spoken he spoke at the highest levels of Science in the world until
he was
marginalized and persecuted
He and his wife truly lived the fifteenth chapter of John's Gospel. We're all part of the vine
We're all part of the vine
We get pruned right
But to have joyful joy, you got to follow the commandments
So we must love as he loves
That's what dr. Jerome Lejeune taught me. That's what his wife teaches us today
if they hated him they will hate us, it's kind of a reality I
Will lead you to all truth. He was a true witness to truth in
today in like 1990 1980 1969 to 1990 he died in 1994 so
Let me begin an example because example is the best witness
Costly, but worth it
So let me just mention. You know why are we here tonight?
Is it down syndrome as a pro-life cause well current events dictate this right?
August 15th
2017
a casually worded CBS news article depicts a horrifying
They reported earlier that month that Iceland is leading the world in eradicating Down syndrome births
the word is
Eradicating destroy completely put an end to
destroy put an end to
Simon and the rest of you here, my heart goes out
Because you're not an endangered species not as long as
Dr. Lejeune and the people that follow him
Continue to breathe
We might one might be forgiven for assuming that Iceland had developed an innovative treatment for the chromosomal disorder
That's what they're doing in Paris right now. We were blessed
Marie and
Lorna and Danny and Miriam we were blessed to have them with us today to tell us a little bit about the last two days
About what they're doing?
It turns out I know Iceland solution is a lot simpler and much more sinister
They're using prenatal testing and abortion to systematically exterminate children with Down syndrome
Folks this ain't progress this is eugenics, and it's been around for a long time. I was a part of it
I know I know what that feels like
On both sides prenatal testing is optional in Iceland, but the government mandates that doctors notify women of that option
Just like we do in this country at about 85% of expectant mothers undergo that test and close to 100% of those women
Choose to abort their child
This is what we do in America. This is what we do in Virginia. This is what we do in Fairfax County also
Remember Pogo said the enemy is us. I met the enemy and the enemy's us
It's me
My heart has to change and if my heart can change then other hearts can change and one by one we can help change this
So whether if it's Shaq running for Congress and whether it's you know everybody here has a mission everybody here
This is what we testified as I mentioned with Danny
Congressional subcommittee several years ago our
Acceptance of this reality and the CBS article does little to accord the sub the moral gravity it deserves
Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates they quote
They noted it casually CBS's news tweet promoting the story read simply
Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion
eliminating by eradicating a problem a disease
Are we supposed to be happy cheerful or horrified? I guess it depends on your worldview today
But Iceland isn't alone where Madame Lejeune is from Denmark
Where she was only born thirty years ago ninety eight ninety eight percent of pregnancies with Down syndrome diagnosis are terminated
ninety eight
That's the same country
that's held up as a standard where the depression rate is going through the roof and suicides going through the roof and
Happiness intervals are made up
Statistics are made up in
France
the home of the Institute seventy-seven percent and in termination
And in the United States at least current data that I could find was 67 percent
This is what I mean, I was Iceland I am Icelandic. I thought I was polish in
Iceland the law permits abortions after 16 weeks at the fetus has a deformity that means about two babies every year in
Den I sling are born with Down syndrome. That's a population of three hundred and thirty thousand people
This is why Down syndrome as a pro-life cause and this is why we're here tonight. This is why we try to have these educational
Conversations at Divine Mercy care and Tepeyac OB/GYN in the 1930s we sterilized the feeble-minded
Carolyn and I have made visits to these buildings that are still up in
southwestern Virginia that were the
Places where people from Europe came in the 1920s to find out how we were dealing with our feeble-minded
Yes, those centers in southwestern southwestern, Virginia
Were where the Nazis came up with some of their ideas in the 1940s?
We gassed the verm in the 1970s
We imported the unwanted in the 1990s we began to freeze and manipulate our youngest
Only picking out the best to use the healthiest through pre-implantation genetic screening
It's by taking these early embryos and looking at their genes right in the Nuba lenio
We are eradicating Down syndrome by destroying those who carry the extra chromosome that dr. Jerome discovered
That's why it's so important to come here tonight and listen to what Madame has to say it is disgusting and disheartening
Only if you look at that end of it, but when you meet folks
like this and
like this
There's a new season of hope
Because there's care and that care gets translated into witness
And then we can support your witness by your families who are in?
This auditorium tonight, and your friends of ours
This is how you do this. This is how you change the culture?
So so what dr. Jerome taught me
You hate the disease, but love the patient. This is the practice of medicine?
He said you don't get rid of diseases by getting rid of patients with those diseases and medicine becomes mad science
He said when it attacks the patient instead of fighting the disease?
Make the diagnosis Dan, Marie, John
You people travel long distances sometimes to come to our practice because you care that we care about the disease make the diagnosis
Don't overmedicate us don't pat us on the head collaborate with us be the best doctors you can be that's what dr.
Jerome was as a scientist
That's it we must always be on the patient's side. He said
We must care and try to cure them in their innocence or else there will be a new massacre of the innocence
Our intelligence is not abstract. He said reason is nothing without the heart
Once again, this is where divine mercy care and the Tepeyac Family Center got these principles
transforming hearts through health care
You got to take the reason and make it come to the heart so we can love enough to make children welcomed an abortion unwanted
That's why the Tepeyac tagline is something more than medicine
So we shouldn't fear medicine, but the folly of mankind I
Love that word mankind as a gynecologist we increase our ability to change nature by using its own laws
We are certainly more powerful today than ever before
But we are no wiser technology is cumulative wisdom is not
Be available to your patients John. He said he reminds me of that in the dark every night never keep them waiting
Long ago medicine made a decision and since then it has always fought against sickness and death for health and life
For even when nature condemns someone to death our duty as physicians is not to execute the sentence
But rather to try to commute the penalty
The science of genetics tells us about the information inscribed in matter, so well that this matter is no longer matter, but a new person
think of personalized medicine
Think of 23-and-me think of ancestry on TV. That's bombarding us every day find out who you are
That's what Dr. Lejeune was talking about in the positive
not in the eugenic sense
The genetic makeup is there at the moment of fertilization?
People say the price of genetic disease is high if we can eliminate them early on this saving would be enormous
We can't deny that the price is high in suffering for the individual and in burdens of society and in what goes through?
Parents hearts when they hear the diagnosis, but we must assign a value to that price. It is precisely
What a society must pay to remain fully human
These are his words, this is what he spoke to us about
We know that the enemies of life want to destroy a Christian civilization
And the first step is to destroy the family at its weakest point the child in the womb
We are all family because we are all human as he said eloquently and simply because that was one of his gifts in
the beginning there is a message and that
message is in life and
That message is life
We need to be clear the quality of a civilization can be measured by the risk fact it has for the weakest
There's no other criteria. He says
Every patient is my brother or sister because in the end
The reasoning that judges all things
Will judge us as you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters you did it to me
So 28 years ago this past September
There was a Tennessee state court that granted temporary
custody of seven frozen embryos to the woman who produced the eggs before the couple got divorced so this couple went through in vitro
fertilization and they got divorced
Well the court rejected the efforts of her estranged husband whose sperm fertilized the eggs
To prevent them from being implanted in her womb
My residency program my
OB/GYN
Program made those embryos for that Davis family
That was at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine. I was there as a resident at the time
We therefore because of this case instituted real informed consent after that
What do we do with the disposal or the use of spare embryos because before that we did whatever the heck we wanted with them
My major professor dr. Howard Jones was the expert on the side of the father who saw the embryos as property
Dr.. Jerome was the expert on the side of the mother who saw the embryos as children
I'm sitting on the other side of that issue listening to that testimony in
His ruling because of the testimony
judge
the judge
Said judged the judge said that the Davis family were in fact these embryos were in fact human beings existing as embryos and
That life begins at the moment of conception
That month I
Remember sitting in a darkened academic lecture hall at Sentara Norfolk General in Norfolk, Virginia, and we listened to dr.
Howard Jones speak about the his creations or our creations. They called him pre embryos a
Term. He championed because he wanted to give the embryo intermediate status not like an appendix more than an appendix
But not the real love or not the real dignity of a full human person
We needed to a we needed to learn an
experiment on these embryos to figure out how life began in the womb in order to do that we had to
Change their moral status
so tonight
What are we going to learn from this witness of truth, Madame Lejeune?
Tonight is about learning caring for the least of our brothers and sisters
How fitting today in our religious tradition we celebrate the life of Luke one of the writers of the Good Book a physician
At DMC and TOG we believe medicine is an act of mercy and good health is based on sacrificial loving relationships
Hating the disease and loving the patient
Our embryos that are made by the millions your property or your children are they owned or loved our
children sexually transmitted transmitted diseases to be eradicated is
fertility and life to be cared for and cooperated with
Ladies and gentleman this is what we're up against
This is why we're here tonight to try this conversation on this issue because it is now this is where we're at as a people
at DMC
We want to help health professionals serve by caring for their patients more completely more than people think is possible
To inspire younger healthcare students to enter the wonderful caring profession and trying to unite the pro-life movement
Which we'll talked about how do we build bridges? How do we unify as much as we can?
at Tepeyac we aim to care medically excellently I
Would put the training of my fellow doctors up against anyone anywhere at any time?
well trained Oh, No
At the Parisian Jerome Lejeune Foundation in the Institute
They are focused on care research and advocacy for the Cure and treatment of patients with genetic illnesses. They have
9,000 patients and growing
they care for the child as a pediatric patient as a
Tween as a young adult and as an adult
And we see this picture today of one of dr. Jerome's partners
Touching the face of a 50 year old 60 year old that they took care of
Amazing so tonight we're at a historical moment I'm grateful for this
Opportunity for you all to be here and share mrs. Madonna Lagoon with us, I would almost dare to say it's a biblical moment
We see this synergy between our Center and their Center in
Treating the disabled as part of our human family
It's an opportunity for patients and providers to be fully alive in utero and out as
The world gets beaten down this provides that hope that
Only something like this caring for people like us
Can happen and it's inclusive, it's welcoming
So tonight let us wake up and rather than stay silent or run away as they kind of did in the garden many years ago
We can't be asleep now
Let us care for our sick and our vulnerable
We've kind of lost the meaning of life because we've lost the meaning of words
The merci beaucoup of deep gratitude to our God who has given us life and love has been lost but can be found
The merci beaucoup of those who have gone before us
We need to remember them and honor them, and as he said continue their work
The merci beaucoup found in families and communities that we've come real communion
When there's that sacrificial love that every one of these families that I've been talking to tonight that I've known that we have known personally
It's our blessing you have taught us so much
But it's also the mercy of medicine that makes it unthinkable to eradicate a fellow member of our family
mercy killing, right
We say that word and the word is just it's lost
What mother would not give all the time to spend with her sick child?
What mother would not give more time?
So tonight let us return
let us relearn mercy and mercy in our hearts for our immediate family in our work by listening to
the love of dr
Jerome's life his wife Madame Berthe Lejeune to speak about Down syndrome as a pro-life cause
So just to give a please a warm welcome, Northern Virginia welcome to madam Lejeune
 
I speak it not very well English, but I will try to tell you
how happy and honored I am to be here.
To see all Dr. John Bruchalski's friends and his facility
rooms this morning.
You know I
knew him a long time since, but we never met.
So that's the first time.  So, that's a very
big emotion that I'm here.
and
I'm asked to tell a little why Jerome was
interested about
these children with Down syndrome
Where me and Jerome had just got married
He got,  there was a professor in Paris who said oh, I have some patients they have
a round head and tongue
and the eyes like that
If you want to walk with me
So perhaps we can do something together, and when Jerome saw these children
he said to me
I'm sure they are so nice and
I'm sure we can do something
But I remember that that time in France. I don't know if so in America
the parent tests the children because
there was
something said that's your fault so you had syphilis or you were alcoholic or
something,  that's your fault so
parents were
ashamed they never took their children out so when he
He was
Had a big consultation
with these children, they came more and more and
He tried so he said there's something to find the first thing
Because sometimes when they born they're born
The doctors didn't know what happened because they couldn't say
That they had
They said your that you are children your child is not normal so he started and
The first thing he found was the finger print
There is little things that's not the big line, but little things here, so you can see
when the
or after that our child is or if it's a Down syndrome
So that was the first thing to find early out
to say
very early that child has something and
then
He was working with them he tried to tell the parents to
Take them out, to be proud of them, and I think already
before
Long time
before the
they discovering his patients came out and they learned not to
take it in
take it in
Something,  but when he discovered the extra chromosome
in
1958
He was thinking that now we know why
They have extra chromosome. so he was thinking that all the doctors over in the world
would start to
do research to
acquire them
but all  the government,  not only in France
said
it's wonderful because now we can detect them before they're born and
Then end the life of a sick baby by abortion,  so they
The government used all their critical research, critical research to detect them
before and
They didn't give money
in France they used hundred and million of
euro to detect them, but they didn't give anything to
the research
For the Down syndrome, and they still don't do it
so
Jerome
Was very
He was so sad when he saw that
They want to kill his patients,  so
you know for that terrible for a man to see his discovery
Turned against his patient
so he decided to defend them, defend  them and
When he
started
to talk
The battle was very hard, the students went away his colleague
were against him, and
he was nearly alone and
He had no money to do his research but little after little
He found new people and now
He could
Start again and when the lasts days of his life
he knew he was dying, so he said he was very anxious to know who
Can continue
My fight, to defend and to try to cure this children, my patients
and then I
think that
Now I see here, I know what you have done
Dr. John Bruchalski, so I think that you will be able to help us too
to do something more for the children
And after he died he died
We had to, we made a little Association and
the year of the foundation and
When you make a Foundation you have to say what do you have in your statement and we said
perhaps
find money to
build houses to take care of these patients
But we say that exists
They are not enough, but they exist, and the social medical that was the same thing
so we said, but we have to
Give money to the research
Because the doctors won't research if they can't  have money to do it, if they had nothing
they can not
so
Our foundation is first research, care, and to defend
And the first year we made a an appeal in
Lancet science and all the
scientific
papers
We have had only five persons who asked for money
And then 15 and now we left
given money to
I don't know how many hundred, but many and especially many American
and somebody in Canada and overall in Europe
So we hope that one day we will find something
But now we have to have doctors who can take care of them
Dr John told about our
Consultation in Paris, that's now it's
We started for twenty years ago, and now it's the biggest in Europe
we have so many patients and
We want very much that you should have the same thing here in the States
I know you have some
But you have not a keyex or home share
So I think it should be good if you could have that
I would like to ask you guys a question
What can you do to help you more
Dr. Lejeune's, one of his famous words was that, Jesuit phrase of more - magis
What else can we do better ?
Know many of you families have children Down syndrome many of you are in the many of you are in the healthcare field
trying to serve whether it's
educational
But we would love to hear what can we do?  what what services? Can we
Do better
I want you to know that afterwards
What is special in our
Consultation, that's the doctors who sees the family
Sees one hour or one and a half hour and
that's possibly because
That's of course very
expensive
but
They can do it because the foundation
financed the
consultation and it's very
Important to talk with the parents
To see all the little things they see
The ear, the all and to ask for the symmetry
What can they do what's possible they can do.  you know we have patients who are walking now?
because before they were sure they couldn't do anything and
The
You know in France they the doctors have not learned very much about symmetry
so
They see some things some things
They don't
Can't,  that's not their fault, the never learned.
and I give always an example there are many other, but I
Do that because that was the first
I had that person a woman she had a big boy with
down syndrome and he was a very good boy and
certainly he was aggressive and he screamed and
The doctor in the little town in France said
Send him to the psychiatric
hospital and after
some times your mother said well, I go to Paris to the
consultation
Lejeune  and they examined because our doctors know that at especially
They don't they know they have pain, but they cannot say where
so
they discovered that he had
Something in the ear and
he got some medication and in one week he was well
if he
what if he had been in the
psychiatric hospital all the
His life
And there are many other things
And they used to say the little girls who had the poke eyes
how do you say?
When they got women, how do you say?
Puberty and they start there cycles? no, when they are 8 years and started to get breast
What you say?
Peior
That starts a very often within examine in the hair and
If
Doctor didn't learn that they put
Cream and cream and it does nothing when they come to our
consultation they do a hormonal examine then
You know all the little things
They are looking for
that the normal doctors had not time to do because
Then
They have to be very pretty but our
Doctors they have the time to see a fall
And we want you should have something like that yeah
Oh
Northern Virginia and the 90s and
We had somebody and they would we would want to have him come to a doctor and I remember your name as
I believe
There were a couple doctors that we could send equal to and it was so wonderful to have that
so I think just by your presence and willingness to do that and to make that known to all the
counseling centers is a
Remarkable addition
to the community to know that that exists and for me that was very important because you know what in my
Occupation I had to make the decision whether I would counsel
Or I would write up a slip to say you can go have an abortion
But I felt very strongly that someone needed to be talked to first. He's so I had to make the decision that
I would not sign that and so I was you know anyway
So this is very important that the word gets out that there are people like you guys
That are doing this and we need to get that work out more that wording out more
Because I don't know that it is and so nurses that are on the line
And they want to really support you
it's so good to know that you stand strongly for that and
If there's some way
I'll be thinking about that if there's some way that we can keep doing that then you know that's wonderful. Well. Thank you
Presence has
Inspired a whole generation of health care professionals
so
And I'm sleeping for Mike my friends Mike my partners
We are a full-service
Ob/gyn practice meaning we see insurance patients and with health care changes and all the craziness
We are grateful for every person who comes and supports us with insurance without engine, but with insurance also
Because Danny and Marie and Miriam, and I we're trying to build make real
light on a note a
Place where we provide excellent surgeries excellent medicine
They talk today about the time
that you can measure love by time with you and
When you don't get paid for
Because you don't do sterilization is another things that people
Your support you people out there who drive from Dumfries in West Virginia and
Center go we know that you're bypassing really good doctors before coming to us and
In order for us to stay alive and afloat financially we absolutely need you as patients and we're grateful for you
We also see the underserved right we try to work with pregnancy centers. We dr.
Emerson is very closely associated with not only the surgery but our perinatal hospice the other side of this equation
Where you accompany people?
When their child may live a few seconds or moments
after the cord is cut and
so
This idea that you know I can point with the idea of a Jerome Lejeune fellowship
Where you actually try to inspire right now?
One of our doctors had a lovely beautiful smart
PA student from James Madison
She's in her office. She's in our office for I think the next few weeks
They're coming from all over. They've come from the Mayo Clinic. They've come from in-state that come from Georgetown
Because they want to know why in this healthcare craziness
most of the time we're still pretty happy and very
Very pleased that we are a part of this, and I think it's part of what dr. Jerome is trying to inspire us
To do so I'm grateful for your kind words
We are definitely building and flying an airplane at the same time
Without your support
Without families that I can look around here, David oh
The Dr's and the Midwife and the staff
Sharon and the rest of the gang,  we are so grateful for your support of us and
This ability to inspire us to continue this fight, so I am
Yes, sir
Yes, please Madame Lejeune I'd be interested to know
What are the sources of support for your husband's Institute in France?
For example are you receiving any his?
Government support through the Ministry of Health or what is the degree of support if any from the Catholic Church?
In France to to his effort to his legacy
Catholic Church now yes now
We have now put
bishops
At the time they voted the law of apportion the bishops. I don't know that the mission
That didn't help us didn't do anything
But then we got
much help from
the pope
John II
Pope John Pail II
And now we have good bishops. They don't help us with money, but they help us with support
But the government they still think that the
Children will Down Syndrome, they shouldn't live.  and they don't see any
reason to help us
With anything
Madam Lejeune and Dr.
Burchalski. Do you see any difference with the new generation of parents?
that are wanting to
Have a different path in choosing life first that there's so much more information
I would say so too for our generation were much more
Kind of
You know we know
More of the evil of abortion what really goes on they can't really you know make up stories anymore
Have you been able to see that it's getting better?
Or it's kind of the same at least on the statistics point of view in Europe doesn't sound good or the u.s.
I'm from Mexico, and I work a lot with the Latin American youth
And I see a lot of a lot of hope and in in Latin America
We do have laws that allow abortion for the reason of
Of a baby coming with some kind of sickness
Which is again one of the first things that should not be happening. We should protect them first
But do you see some beacon of hope with these new generations
Yes, of course , just about this young
Girl, her Mother has been working
Shes from Mexico, this Mother has been working with my husband in Paris
several years
So she know
many things that about
Down Syndrome and
Their
Families between them know that we have to hate
The disease  and loves the patient
and
it's very important because
this the
Patient's they feel if you like them
They see
In the first moment when you come oh
They like me so
it's more easy and
If you see a difference with this new generation of parents that are becoming more pro-life in France or
Not ?   No, No
No, I think
You ask if the parents are pro-life of this children
Yes, of course because they love their children
But I think they have many other
Things to do they are not what you call militant
pro-life
They think yes, my child is
Wonderful. I love them, but they are not
They have so many other troubles so that sadness to see who's
Going in front to fight for pro-life
Once again, I'm speaking for my
work
We talk about a room with a view
You talk about how for 40 years
We have much better ultrasounds
Wait the world's gotten harder over so now they see it. They still want to determine
and
so the younger generation
Obviously is looking for more because we're at the point. I believe that the world is so devoid of meaning
because we're texting and we're
Facebooking and we're you know 30 seconds you've got four seconds you guys like my son I think it's eight seconds
however because of the quality of the relationships though the people I work with
We see many young people who travel distances
Because they want a particular way of approaching the person
Integrated holistic please listen to me
Remember we're in this generation of you know
listening and
As
We've tried
this younger generation
Truly believes that they want more from life
then
Be done with it, and they're looking for this and so a lot of the time when our doctors when dr.
Anderson's talking with and counseling about
In mrs. Lejeune talked about this morning
This is your daughter
This is not your child with doubt this is your this is your son
Are you who were a case of a lawyer in our practice a wife and whose husband was a lawyer
They found out at 22 weeks that they had a choice them
but the baby had multiple multiple multiple anomalies and the father wanted to terminate that pregnancy and
The mother was what? What do you mean? He just found out I?
Said listen give it a weekly to this is your child will accompany you as best
We can and the whole team was involved. You know everybody was a part of us and
You threatened, you know you kept threatening us with letters that he was gonna sue us because we were traumatizing his wife
but his wife kept saying no, I'm good for another I
Want to still be with my child because I know when I cut the cord he may not be with us
This is different than downs, but it's very sick charlie
well when we delivered that child and
He was in the room the father was in the room silent up at the head of the bed
And we delivered this little one cut the cord that he said daddy. Here's your son
He gave that cry that deep-seeded cry well the father who was given his second son
And a few months later. We got a little note saying dear team
Thank you for introducing me to my son
This was somebody that he didn't want to deal with didn't want to touch didn't want any of that
And we're not seeing a change in that aspect. We're also seeing a change in the young folks
They're more willing to work with
These conditions not across the board but
Definitely and then we try to provide them mentors people who've done it already like there is hope
There are doctors who will really care for each other children
there are doctors will want to hear pediatric Lee and as their teens and
So that's been one of the values of I think what the pair of the Paris Institute has
But it's a good question, and it's a hard question because the world's getting harder and harder
But I think we've been doing it a long time and people have been hurt over and over and over again
and we don't want to do that we want something different than that yes, ma'am I
have a question first of all I want to thank my foundation and your husband because
He gave my parents hope with my brother
I came from Maryland. I found out about this Shirley died accident because I opened my big mouth
My brother is older he's getting into the phase of
getting old and
probably
You know accelerated senility?
and
You know we're at a time where there's more information now for the younger generation so that
downes people disabled people in general
Can keep up with so-called normal more because there's more information out there?
On the other hand we also have the issue of
Mercy killing which I guess goes kind of hand in hand with eradicating downs
I tell people we should make a monument to that off because he was way ahead of his time
I
Am scared for my brother because I don't know he will need help
My mother and I can't do it on our own and
We're afraid to take him to a hospital in Maryland because we don't know what's gonna happen to him
So what is your foundation doing for?
The older people that have downs that have not adapted as easily we have
Before they died value and
Our patients they have a little book
where they
write all
What they want to eat, what
they want
What they want to eat
or
drink, to see,  to read
all things, so the day when the parent
died
The people would have the book and know exactly
What they want
so they
do not have the
difficult with them
Its a bit difficult to explain
Its a book of Life where they note all
So the people take care when the Parents die,  they know all about
What color do you like, what time do want to eat,  what do you want
You get to know the person yes, so then they have all the
Information. What I find fascinating it was incredibly encouraging to us
Is that one, the Jerome Lejeune is not only the highest level of research?
But they provide care for these folks  meaning they are seeing people
I just heard two years ago, they started a geriatric division for caring for the oldest person dancing
They considered a slight thing where they had twelve different subspecialties
pediatric endocrinology, pulmonology
Neurology.  In fact, I don't think she's here tonight, but one of our/my
colleagues in Paris she studies the neuro / biochemistry
To understand the patient. This Center is not just like research,  and kind of they actually are
they do dietary
Resources
This is encouraging
And if there was a way
To bring this here
it would be wonderful because
The
Medicine
And this idea of
Folks don't get to be a president. That's irrelevant focusing to there's some Alzheimer position
Doctors are going to talk about the biochemistry so it is articles on that single article even today are some the best
I've ever read on a mechanism a they just don't leave it out of science they want to do the practicals
And they're doing Vincent's parents where they're not doing a whole lot well, so it's a great question and it kind of inspires us
To want to kind of push
I'm also a madam
Dr. John it's wonderful to be here with you this evening. I happen to work in the pro-life movement
Here in the United States. I am the state president of our state pro-life organization. I was fascinated
When the news from Iceland broke in the media here
When the media was discussing what they were doing to downes children before birth to the mothers of?
Iceland I was deeply troubled
I
Happened to have had an abortion myself
so I'm always sympathetic that the abortion experience is so hard on the mothers and obviously deadly to their children I
Was interested if you could tell us
Was there
Any particular reaction?
From the public in France when the news broke
Because here when the news started to come out
The general media was very negative or very rather shall I say
Supportive of what the government of Iceland was doing to these babies
But the disability rights groups that exist in the United States were very vocally
Opposed to what Iceland was doing are there groups like our disability rights groups in France
Who spoke out when the news broke in France or was it even discussed?
In France they used
the Down syndrome
To get the law of the abortion because the first proper
cessation of law
Who was not voted of that was when
Pompidou was
President and I know he said to his Minister
Oh they want abortion,  try to find something
That will not be voted, but that was
when a woman could have an abortion
In the only only case and never more if there's a risk that the child will
be
down syndrome. (so now in France the subject is not even discussed?) no
They have still
They talk very very much
We will do better for all handicapped but that's not handicapped mental, that's handicapped physical
They do many things
For people who had no arms or legs, but not for mental
What happened, they had room
for Children with
Mental handicap, you have shown findings Did you hear about
the Ark
the ash
that was a Canadian, a man from Canada and he
said I'll take care of
built houses for
Yes
He's known in the world of all
Jean Vanier,  yes - do you know ?
And he especially for older
Handicap, and they are very happy there, even though
Of course they are unhappy when the parents go away
But that's normal for all young people
So he understand
Let's get them involved with  something working
with the flowers or we pull weeds
They are very happy he did in France and he did a little all over
Mercy to your your legacy all of us in the movement Revere and honor the memory of your dear husband, thank you for coming this
But if there's no hope that
there, I'm happy that
research is not only for the mental
Now there's many
clinical research
not only in our
Institute
but all in other countries, so I think that the
We will that's going
Not very quickly, but all research That's a long way
But there's a hope each state
for
That and I'm sure that what they will find something
Thank you madam Lejeune and thank you dr. John Burchaslki my name is Matt Hassan and one of the
Briefs comment and then questions directly related to my comment
What it strikes me is that what you all are communicating us is there's two pieces to?
To the care of downs and I have to say it's very much
Hope and accompaniment and
I can't speak directly regarding downs, but I have had my own experience with a devastating disease and
Understanding those things when a when parents find out their children have down syndrome. They need hope
They need hope they need to know they're not alone. It's the same thing as with cancer
You need to hope that there's something to be done in something me alone so my questions are basically to
In the area of hope and I can speak a lot about cancer and hope but in the area of Downs
Where are we with the actual treatment of Downs itself? That's the first question and
The second one, and I think your Center is the example by which the model which needs to be built here
Of that accompaniment through all the stages of downs and life in general
What can we do here and getting that message out and and building that here?
obviously we can put money there we can throw money there, but what's the smart way and the right way to approach building such a
System here. Thank you very much
Hi
Thank you
For the foundation
You you you so, it's it's so right
What you are saying is you we need we need hope
in that way in fact
I see two roads
Mainly two roads first road, it's it's to care
Because you know the Down syndrome people have a lot of
comorbidities and
We can help a lot
Downs syndrome young people and adults and olders
by taking
in charge their comorbidities
For example today. We are doing in France a program in the Institute
with
Apnea, you know you know what apnea is and
We are
we are trying apnea to detect a apnea of the
When you sleep of the sleep on
very young children two three months four months six months and
We know perfectly well that when we detect Apnea we have we have good means to
care the apnea of the young babies and
So the detection of apnea
Immediately can help young people to be much more dynamic to have much more energy
to develop their own
capacity in cognition
You know and it's important for for Down syndrome baby to be of the the most
capacity
ability to learn to to be to be open to life, so
such
program simple program can consider considerably
Help Down syndrome babies 40 % of Downs Syndrome babies have
Apnea when they sleep
So you know immediately you can you can have a good a good answer and positive answer another way to
To to hope is naturally to cure
It's to try to understand. Where are the the
Distance the dysfunctionment you say that in in dysfunctional of the commission
Where in the metabolism the causes of the this
dysfunctionment of of
cognition and today we have
several several way
Genetic way where we try to innovate?
the genes
candidate of the disability and we
Were trying on four or five of these genes with with molecules
with active molecules
We are we are
we are sustaining for programs and
Molecules active molecule to to to innovate some genes and we are also trying to work on the brain
What what what are the?
difficulties of the of the cognition of the behavior in the brain of a Down syndrome person and on that way also
We are we are doing a lot of progress
For example
We know
today that
Down syndrome persons
when they are adults when they are
Olders they they have more altimeters disease than
the other of the population
because because gene of the
altimeters disease in is located on the chromosome 21
Is located under chromosome 21 so in a Down syndrome for Down syndrome persons
We have no two chromosome 21, we have three chromosome 21  so we have
opportunity more opportunity to develop altimeters
It's very interesting very
interesting because
working
working on altimeters we can we can we can we can help a Down syndrome persons and
Working and Down syndrome disease we can help altimeters and today. We are working a lot on cross
fraternization you know research on different diseases, and that is going up
It's really a very large road of hope
because we have no more money not know much money and
Trisomy 21 for the research, but we have plenty of money
To research an Altimeters you see so so really you have something going in the good in the good way
for for positive results so
So it's the two roads of hope and I would like to have the third roads
of hope
Naturally, it's it's love more. We will love the down syndrome persons more
We will help them more. We will give them energy
Positive mind
to to
help them and to to contribute to their to their well-being and
Today if I can say something positive in France but also I know in other countries
Down syndrome persons when they are born they
Are much more respected than before
Today you it's it's it's frequent to have a Down syndrome person and TV set
in in in a
movie program
in in in
In in the restaurants - you have restaurants in in France in America everywhere where it's down syndrome
Person who cook will serve in the in the rooms so you have a much more positive
integration of of Down syndrome persons and
That it's it's very interesting because
You you have more visibility of what a down syndrome person is
the richness of a  down syndrome person and much more
integration in the in the ordinary mind you see and that is positive -
so we need the we need the
The the help of researchers
We need the help of clinicians, but we need the help of Down syndrome
Persons because they are the best ambassadors of themselves
Thank you
Thank you Perry
Perry is the executive director of Jerome Lejeune Foundation in France and has been doing wonderful work in support of their mission
Madame we we really appreciate all you have done tonight for us in educating us in
Inspiring us I think my big takeaway personally is that?
Through hope through accompaniment and through love we can see
the the progress that is being made in research and in care, and thus just what Terry said they will
promote
We can help promote
the life of an individual with Down syndrome and
And so that they can accomplish everything and that they have the potential to do and that is a wonderful beautiful
blessing from God I believe
Madam we have for you some wonderful
gifts that I
Thankfully the ladies are not my office chose this so they have a good wood touch, but we have a personalized
Madam Lejeune bag for you
My statue of the Holy family
You
