Abortion-tainted COVID-19 vaccines and our obligation to demand change
Edward Jenner vaccinating a patient against smallpox
As many of you will be aware, one of the moral debates raging during this pandemic relates to the issue of abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccines.
We continue to receive regular feedback from people seeking clarification about this issue, and so we thought that this summary might be of some use.
What is the moral issue at stake here?
In a nutshell, the moral issue here is the use of abortion-derived foetal cell lines in the development, production or testing of a Covid-19 vaccine.
An abortion-derived foetal cell line is created by taking a cell from an aborted child and then multiplying it into many cells of the same kind. These can be grown indefinitely and further multiplied, and then lines of cells can be used for manufacturing and/or experimentation purposes.
The two common abortion-derived foetal cell lines in use today are HEK-293 and PER.C6.
HEK-293 came from the kidneys of a Dutch baby girl in 1973.
The general understanding is that she was aborted, however some have contended that it is unclear and the child could have actually miscarried. Because of the moral gravity of what is at stake here, and the fact that initial indications were that it involved an abortion, the precautionary principle should cause us to err on the side of caution and assume that abortion was the method of death unless this is absolutely proven not to be the case.
PER.C6 came from the retinal cells of a perfectly healthy 18 week old unborn child who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1985.
What does this mean in practice?
Practically speaking, cell lines that have been grown from both of these original abortion victims are still in use today, and have been part of the manufacturing process of Covid-19 vaccines.
The vaccines using these abortion-derived cell lines do NOT contain aborted foetal material of any kind, and no new abortions were involved in their manufacturing process.
Vaccines do not need to use abortion-derived cell lines. They can be created using no cells or cells from animals, insects, chicken eggs, or yeast.
In some cases the abortion-derived cell lines are used in the creation of the vaccine, in other cases they are used in the testing phases of the vaccine manufacturing process, and in some cases they are used for both creation and testing.
There is an excellent (and regularly updated) table available here on the Charlotte Lozier Institute website which shows which vaccines use these cell lines, and how they use them (the red triangle symbol indicates the use of an abortion-derived cell line).
The Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine currently being used in New Zealand only used abortion-derived cell lines in the confirmatory testing stage of its manufacture.
Novavax, a traditional vaccine option that the NZ government is currently considering, also only used abortion-derived cell lines in the confirmatory testing stage of its manufacture.
The Valneva and Dynavax vaccine, another traditional vaccine option which is currently undergoing trials in New Zealand, was not created using abortion-derived cell lines, and it is currently unknown whether they were used in the confirmatory testing stage of its manufacture.
What are the moral issues in all of this?
First and foremost, abortion is a grave injustice which involves the destruction of an innocent human life.
This means that any products utilising cell lines derived from the bodies of those original abortion victims are morally comprised.
Under normal circumstances it would not be morally good to use morally compromised products that have been tainted by such a grave evil.
In this case, however, there are some important factors and moral principles which come into play, meaning that a person can choose to utilise these vaccines without morally comprising themselves by doing so.
Formal versus material cooperation
When we find ourselves connected to the immoral actions of other people (as a user of abortion-tainted vaccines does), there are different types of moral ‘cooperation’ that can happen.
The first type of moral cooperation is ‘formal cooperation’.
Formal cooperation in evil occurs when someone intentionally helps another person to carry out an immoral act. For example, if I knowingly and willingly supply you with a car and a weapon that you use in an armed robbery I am guilty of formal cooperation in your immoral actions.
The other type of moral cooperation is ‘material cooperation’.
Material cooperation in evil occurs when someone unintentionally helps another person do something immoral.
Material cooperation can be morally permissible, depending on how closely related to the evil action it is.
For example, if I lend you my mobile phone and then you later use it to organise and carry out an armed robbery I have not done anything morally wrong.
My material cooperation was far enough away from your eventual criminal act as to be considered ‘remote’ (our proximity to an evil act is another important principle when it comes to discerning our moral culpability in the actions of others).
One other important factor in all of this is that there needs to be a sufficient justification for someone to be involved in material cooperation in evil - and the closer they get to cooperating in the evil the stronger that justification needs to be.
Which brings us to a very important piece of context when it comes to using Covid-19 vaccines.
The seriousness of the danger we face
Currently there is a novel virus sweeping the globe which can be particularly serious, even deadly, for some people. This risk is also elevated even more for some demographics, such as the elderly, the obese or those with other underlying health issues.
On top of this, there is the fact that the increased hospitalisations caused by Covid-19 can make the situation worse, and even contribute to deaths from other non-Covid causes if hospitals become too overcrowded.
This increases the status of Covid-19 vaccines from merely being a helpful medical option, to becoming a life or death medical necessity for large numbers of people.
On top of this, in a lot of instances (certainly here in New Zealand), we are not currently afforded the option of a vaccine which has not been tainted by abortion in its manufacturing process.
This means that, for a lot of people, there is an urgent and very serious medical need, and only one therapeutic option available to them, and that option has been abortion-tainted.
In other words, there is currently an extremely serious justification for participating in material cooperation with the evil of abortion-tainted vaccines.
Also, for the vaccine user, their cooperation is NOT formal cooperation, and nor is it proximate (close) material cooperation - it is remote material cooperation.
The vaccine user did not intend, and neither were they closely associated with the abortion, or the action of using abortion-derived cell lines to manufacture or test the vaccine.
We have an obligation to demand change!
What all of this means is that it can be morally permissible for a pro-life person to use an abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccine, with one very important caveat: we should do this under some form of protest.
So, at the very least, we should be communicating directly with vaccine manufacturers or political leaders and asking them to stop using abortion derived cell lines in therapeutic products and testing.
A recent example of an effective protest of this kind was the boycott of Pepsi products when it came to light that they were in a commercial relationship with Senomyx, a company which utilised HEK-293 in the creation of sweetness and flavour enhancers.
Pepsi subsequently issued a public statement saying that their commercial relationship with Senomyx had ended and that they do “not conduct or fund research that utilizes any human tissue or cell lines derived from embryos or fetuses.”
Two other VERY important considerations!
Firstly, despite the fact that it can be morally permissible for someone to use an abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccine, this does NOT mean that such vaccines are ethical.
The fact that these vaccines (along with other products) utilise abortion-derived cell lines in their manufacturing process means that they are morally comprised products.
The end user has not done anything immoral if they use such a vaccine at a time of dire necessity, but this does not mean that the use of abortion derived cell lines is a morally good thing.
Secondly, just as it can be morally permissible for someone to use an abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccine, it can also be morally permissible for someone to refuse such a vaccine because of its connection to abortion.
One important point that some moral philosophers highlight is that consumer/end user decision-making is an extremely important factor in shaping corporate behaviours in the modern economic environment.
In other words, our choices still play a very powerful part in all of this, and that can cause people of goodwill to want to actively avoid abortion-tainted vaccines for themselves.
If someone chooses to conscientiously object and not use an abortion-tainted Covid-19 vaccine they should still be proactive in utilising other means to try and prevent the spread of Covid-19 to others.
One final and very important point…
Due to the current climate of fear and intensity surrounding Covid-19, a lot of people have found themselves under unjust pressure and scrutiny when it comes to their vaccine decision making.
Regardless of whether a person has chosen to use a Covid-19 vaccine, or whether they have chosen to abstain from using one (and sometimes this is only until a different option is available), no one else should be passing judgment on them.
Covid-19 is the enemy in this fight, not other human beings.
No one should ever be coerced, threatened, deceived or manipulated into using or abstaining from using a vaccine. Nor should anyone be ridiculed, abused or ostracised for the choices they make about Covid-19 vaccines.
Anytime this happens, we are failing to respect the dignity of another person - and that is never morally acceptable.
