There is a lot of justified outrage out there of late about abortion among Christians. However, many Christian parents either do not want to know or are simply ignorant of the fact that major vaccines given to children contain aborted baby parts.
This is not a post about the question of the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. So please do not comment on that facet of the vaccine debate in the comments. It's about whether we are consistent in our ethics: Can you be a Christian and knowingly allow your child to be injected with aborted fetal tissue?
How can you know what vaccines contain it? The following video discusses this issue.
That's an old ethical debate. The general principle is whether the results of an immoral action or event taint the results. Ironically, that's a common argument for aborting a child conceived in rape. So I don't consider that a reliable principle in general.
ReplyDeleteOne issue is whether this is an ongoing process, or something from the past.
Another issue is that, in a fallen world, there's often an unavoidable degree of complicity in how we incidentally benefit from the wrongdoing of others.
Another basic question to apply to this issue is whether the claim is factually correct. As far as I understand the issue, Alan's title is a wildly inaccurate and purposefully inflammatory way to state the issue. Vaccines don't contain aborted baby parts. They are weakened viruses that were grown in cell cultures, some of which descend from cells taken from murdered babies.
DeleteAnother relevant question that has been asked below is whether there are any vaccines or vaccine companies that currently benefit from or use murdered baby parts. In other words, does the vaccine industry directly or indirectly prop up the abortion industry? I don't know the answer to that conclusively, but my limited reading seems to suggest the answer is "no."
http://www.drwile.com/lnkpages/render.asp?vac_abortion
"Another relevant question that has been asked below is whether there are any vaccines or vaccine companies that currently benefit from or use murdered baby parts.?"
DeleteYes.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/fact-checking-congress-s-fetal-tissue-report
The key to the problem lies in the intent of abortion. Was the abortion done with the intention of producing vaccines or not? If there was no such intention, then there would not be any moral problem.
It's like taking advantage of the organs of someone who has not been murdered with the intention of benefiting from their organs.
Even if it were justified depending on intent, the abortion industry and the vaccine industry certainly does not have any basis for public trust (e.g. big Pharma is immune from liability, can't sue them). So we are asking questions where the answers are not realistic. As if the vaccine recipient has a say in the matter: "I'll take the non-intended aborted based vaccine, not the intended one."
DeleteOne point to consider in light of your last comment. While Christians can benefit from a grocery store that sells porn magazines, the grocery store could easily survive without selling porn. But certain vaccines depend on aborted tissue for its outcome. If that is correct, then Christian parents are inadvertently supporting, in part, the abortion industry, which profits significantly from vaccine companies.
ReplyDeleteIs it wrong for a child to accept an organ from another child that was murdered? You can be against the murder of a child while simultaneously benefitting downstream.
DeleteCan you be simultaneously against the selling of Joseph into slavery while also being ok with the benefits that many people were saved alive as a result (Gen 50.20)?
I don’t think that requires morally supporting (inadvertently) either of the aforementioned evils.
I’d be curious to know how close the connection is between abortion industry and vaccine companies. At present, is there strong incentive to kill millions of babies in order to prop up the vaccine industry? I suppose that might create a perverse incentive, but I thought I remember reading that, at least in the case of certain vaccines, the aborted fetal tissue was decades old, which would hardly require an ongoing influx of dead babies to maintain.
I have never heard that vaccines use aborted fetal parts before. Doing a quick google search seems to indicate that "descendant cells" from a couple of aborted fetuses in the 1960's have been used to grow independent cell lines for a few vaccines produced today. From what I can tell (I am no expert and did no extensive research on the matter), there are no vaccines that use recently aborted fetal tissue. But then again maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. These two Catholic links to the issue seem to be legitimate information and corresponds to other things I read. But maybe I'm missing something. https://www.cacatholic.org/policies-issues/reverence-life/bioethics/question-parental-rights-and-mandated-vaccinations and http://www.immunize.org/talking-about-vaccines/vaticandocument.htm.
ReplyDeleteThe information is readily available. Here are the inserts:
Deletehttp://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm
For example, it is found in the most popular—and mandated—vaccine for children in America:
https://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf
"(Rubella Virus Vaccine Live), the Wistar RA 27/3 strain of live attenuated rubella virus propagated in WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts.{1,2}"
Alan,
DeleteJust curious, would you still be opposed to it if the cell lines had been derived from a "spontaneous abortion" (i.e., a miscarriage)?
Yes, but the question is: are currently aborted fetuses being used to produce vaccines? The moral question (as indicated in the Catholic links) seems to shift if that is not the case. IOW, is it true that some current cell lines are growing independently even though they originated in a few aborted fetuses in the 1960's is there active harvesting of aborted fetuses today that are being used to produce vaccines? I think in order to fairly pose the moral questions we have to be clear on the facts of the case. If we are making the claim that fetuses that are being aborted today are being used to produce vaccines, that is different than saying no fetuses today are being used to produce vaccines. It may be the case that if only the latter is true then we still have a moral dilemma. But if the former statement is true, then we may have a even more serious moral problem. I'm not suggesting we don't have a moral problem, but we need to be clear on the facts. BTW, I have no position on the question of whether to vaccinate or not. That does not play into the issue at hand.
ReplyDeleteThere should be an "or" right after "1960's"
ReplyDeleteParents have a duty to protect young kids from serious avoidable harm.
ReplyDeleteI'm a pro-life conservative Christian in medicine, but I don't have a problem with vaccination in general. In fact, I support vaccination in general. Anyway, I point out problems with Patriot Nurse's anti-vaccination video in my post here:
ReplyDeletehttp://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/vaxxed