Quei "21 Pensieri" sulla Giornata per i Down

Si celebra oggi la decima Giornata mondiale della sindrome di Down. Una data, il 21 marzo, che non stata scelta a caso visto che la sindrome nota anche come Trisomia 21. A scoprirla e a darle questo nome fu il genetista, pediatra e attivista francese Jrme Lejeune (19261994), proclamato servo di Dio dalla Chiesa cattolica. I suoi "21 Pensieri", che vi riproponiamo di seguito in inglese, con la promessa di tradurli presto, sono una manifesto in difesa della vita e della persona umana.

1. Human genetics can be summarized in this basic creed: In the beginning is the message, and the message is in life, and the message is life. And if the message is a human message, then the life is a human life.

2. Life has a very long history, but each of us has a very definite beginningthe moment of conception.

3. A month after conception, a human being is one-sixth of an inch long. The tiny heart has already been beating for a week, and the arms, legs, head and brain have already begun to take shape. At two months, the child would fit into a walnut shell: Curled up, she measures a little more than an inch long. Inside your closed fist, she would be invisible, and you could crush her without meaning toeven without noticing. But if you open your hand, she is virtually complete, with hands, feet, head, internal organs, brain, everything in place. All she needs to do is grow. Look even more closely with a standard microscope, and you'll be able to make out her fingerprints. Everything needed to establish her identity is already in place.

4. Hate the disease, love the patient: That is the practice of medicine.

5. Again and again we see this absolute misconception of trying to defeat a disease by eliminating the patient! It's ridiculous to stand beside a patient and solemnly say, Who is this upstart who refuses to be cured? How dare he resist our art? Let's get rid of him! Medicine becomes mad science when it attacks the patient instead of fighting the disease. We must always be on the patient's side, always.

6. When parents are worried about a sick child, we have no right to make them waitnot even one nightif we can do otherwise.

7. Either we will cure them of their innocence, or there will be a new massacre of the innocents.

8. I see only one way left to save them, and that is to cure them. The task is immensebut so is Hope.

9. We will beat this disease. 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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Quei "21 Pensieri" sulla Giornata per i Down