Vatican City, Jul 19, 2005 / 12:00 am (CNA).- In a recent document, the Vatican has condemned the production and use of vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines. The Pontifical Academy for Life’s eight-page document was published in Medicina e Morale by the Center for Bioethics of Catholic University in Rome. It is titled “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses.”
Vatican officials have put the full burden of guilt on the pharmaceutical industry, comparing their moral complicity to that of the abortionists themselves. They are also calling for "rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers."
The Vatican also supports parents who refuse to use the vaccines. “As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health,” the statement reads.
The document states that doctors and families "should use conscientious objection and oppose by all means – in writing, through various associations, mass media, etc, - the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human fetus.”
Children of God for Life executive director Debi Vinnedge said she is pleased with the document. Her organization had sent an appeal on the matter to the Vatican a few years ago.
"There is a serious problem when parents are denied the right to abstain from these vaccines in accord with State law, simply because there was nothing from the Vatican directly addressing it,” she said.
Vinnedge says the Vatican document should spur action on their Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Act, introduced to members of Congress earlier this year. The legislation requires that pharmaceutical companies give full disclosure whenever aborted fetal or embryonic cell lines are used in their products.
Dr. Steven White, president of the Catholic Medical Association, agreed that the pharmaceutical industry should provide accurate information on the origin of all vaccines so that consumers “are able to make informed decisions in accord with our moral conscience.”
To reed the full Vatican Document visit: http://www.cogforlife.org/vaticanresponse.htm
Very interesting. No wonder my kids who got vaccines were all fine, because no fetal tissue was being used in the vaccines.
God has his ways of dealing with those who disobey his laws.
In other words, it stressed the importance of allowing Catholics to refuse on moral grounds vaccines that utilize human fetal cell lines while putting pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to look for alternatives to vaccines that do not use human cell lines as a growth medium but also admits that currently for some vaccines there is presently no alternative and that choice must be weighed against the greater benefit that comes from vaccinating against diseases like Rubella.
As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health. However, if the latter are exposed to considerable dangers to their health, vaccines with moral problems pertaining to them may also be used on a temporary basis. The moral reason is that the duty to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave inconvenience. Moreover, we find, in such a case, a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children. This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles.
In any case, there remains a moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically. However, the burden of this important battle cannot and must not fall on innocent children and on the health situation of the population - especially with regard to pregnant women.
To summarize, it must be confirmed that:
there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems;
as regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one's own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole - especially for pregnant women;
the lawfulness of the use of these vaccines should not be misinterpreted as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing and use, but is to be understood as being a passive material cooperation and, in its mildest and remotest sense, also active, morally justified as an extrema ratio due to the necessity to provide for the good of one's children and of the people who come in contact with the children (pregnant women);
such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible.
Again it is important to note that while abortion is evil and the cell lines in use today did indeed come from two abortions performed in the early 1960’s, not only as a medium for growing weakened or inactive virus, but also in many other medical research uses, it is against Federal law and has been for some time to donate fetal tissue or for the parents’ or doctors from profiting from such a donation. In other words, pharmaceuticals that use fetal cell lines use the two self-replicating cell lines; MRC-5 and WI-38 and have for over 30 years and the use of these cell lines is in no way related to or dependent on any subsequent abortions. While that doesn’t change the fact and the original immorality of the two abortions performed some 30 years ago, the conscious and moral decision to receive vaccinations that utilize fetal cell lines must be weighed against the benefits of not vaccinating against deadly diseases like Rubella that caused the death and grave deformities of untold countless babies before the vaccine was available.
And to clarify again, vaccines do not contain fetal tissues; if they did they would be fatal in nearly all cases as injection of human tissues into another person cannot be done safely unless there is a very close tissue match. This is why blood donations and organ transplants must be carefully matched to the recipient.
As a doctor, you should know this.