The Ugly Truth Behind Some Childhood Vaccinations
[Reprinted from OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, June 1, 2003] Tom Tracy ( ttracy@osv.com ) is a senior correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor. Many Vaccines are derived from tissue from aborted fetuses. Is it therefore a sin for Catholic parents to immunize their kids? After learning some popular vaccines are developed from aborted fetal tissue, Shannon Law decided her three children should not get a chicken pox immunization. The state of Arkansas, where the immunization is mandatory, disagreed. The Little Rock mother argued that to give her children the vaccine would be a violation of her Catholic faith. Because abortion is a grave sin, she said, to expose her children to the vaccine would be tantamount to complicity in the original 1966 abortions used in the product's research and development. Arkansas health officials denied the exemptions and threatened to keep two of law's children from attending public school. While the state did allow for religious exemptions from immunizations, it did not allow for the Catholic objection. The exemption only accommodated a religious belief that categorically rejected vaccinations---a situation applicable to Christian Scientists, for example. The Arkansas Department of Health disagreed with Law's interpretation of Catholic doctrine and denied her exemption---a scenario that has played out in other situations nationwide dealing with similar questions about the ethics of vaccine derived from aborted fetuses. In response, Law and one other Catholic mother in Arkansas sued in federal court with the assistance of the Florida-based Liberty Council. MORAL AMBIGUITY Law's situation “typifies some of the problems parents have run into,” said Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on the vaccine issue and has monitored the Arkansas case. Vinnedge told Our Sunday Visitor that there is a great deal of confusion about vaccines. “parents don't know what to do because there are opposing arguments on both sides of the from ethicists and the magisterium,” she said. In April, the Arkansas state legislature, acting independently of the federal suit, amended its law to provide both religious rights and personal philosophical exemptions for anyone opposing the mandated vaccines. “The changes were made in direct response to the lawsuit and two other similar lawsuits on the same issue. The prior immunization statute was declared unconstitutional, and the legislature responded with enacting the new statute,” Erik Stanley of the Liberty Counsel told Our Sunday Visitor. The lawsuit continues on appeal. The 8 th Circuit Court will make a decision soon whether to dismiss the case. In the meantime, though, it was good news for Law, who is preparing to relocate within Arkansas “and feared she would have to go through the entire ordeal again with another school,” said Vinnedge, who attended a stockholders' meeting of Merck & Co. this year in order to urge that pharmaceutical manufacturer to stop using cell lines derived from aborted baby tissue (see story, Page 5.) The cell lines currently used in the vaccines are not inexhaustible and will eventually need to be replaced, possibly with more aborted fetal tissue or from an ethical source such as animal tissue. “However, it appears the direction the pharmaceuticals are going is more fetal-cell lines,” Vinnadge added. Embryonic stem-cell research, a related concern, is a more clear-cut bioethical issue because an embryo is killed for the specific purpose of the research project. In the case of vaccines, however, the harvesting of fetal tissue from abortions is performed for other reasons. Nevertheless, it still involves making arrangements with abortionists and risks legitimizing the procedure, according to some ethicists. Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he sees indications that more alternatives to using fetal tissue are emerging, including in the area of vaccine development. The U.S. bishops have stated that deriving vaccines from aborted fetal tissue tends to legitimize abortion, requires collaboration with the abortion industry, and therefore should be avoided. COPING WITH OTHERS' CHOICES But the bishops' vaccine fact sheet poses a question: If such collaboration with abortion has already taken place, and the only vaccine available for a serious disease contains material cultured in fetal tissue from an abortion, may Catholics submit to this vaccine without committing serious sin? “Most Catholic moralists have replied in the affirmative,” the statement reads: “The recipient of the vaccine took no part in decisions to base the vaccine on this morally unacceptable source, but is coping with the results of immoral decisions made by others.” In other words, says Doerflinger, the people receiving vaccines are somewhat at the mercy of others and so are being asked to choose between their health and moral sensitivity. Catholic bishops in Great Britain, who also looked at this issue, do not think that Catholics have to reject this kind of vaccine, because the final user is so remote from the makers who collaborated with the abortion industry, according to Doerflinger. But the drug makers still have some direct collaboration with the abortion industry to make the vaccine, he said. Catholics and others who are concerned about exploitation of the unborn should petition the appropriate companies to find other sources for the vaccines. “More and more alternatives to the use of fetal tissue are emerging, even in the vaccine arena, and if Americans raise concern about abortion as a source of cultural media, the companies will respond,” Doerflinger said. The use of fetal tissue, meanwhile, is failing as a good therapy for some medical conditions, he said. NO MEDICAL NECESSITY Moreover, there is no medical need to use fetal tissue in the production of vaccines, argues Jameson Taylor, whose book “Vacccines Derived from Abortion: Making an Informed Choice” is published by Children of God for Life and will be released this summer. Taylor initially got involved in the vaccine controversy after writing a related magazine article several years ago. “We are not saying every Catholic must definitely avoid using these vaccines,” Taylor told Our Sunday Visitor. “in the course of my research I decided I will not use the vaccines on my children, but we encourage people to get as much information as possible, pray about it, and make a conscientious decision.” |
|---|