Government Must Reject COVID-19 Vaccines That Use Aborted Baby Cell Lines
The government has a moral obligation to refuse to fund research or purchase morally contentious vaccines to fight Coronavirus and other threats to life and health, that have been derived from cell lines of children who have been killed in abortion.
It is abhorrent that vaccines developed from aborted cell lines contain the DNA of the children who were aborted.
Right to Life is writing to the Minister of Health requesting that the government purchase only ethically produced vaccines to combat the coronavirus.
The government has a duty to offer to the community vaccines that will not violate the conscience of those who are opposed to the killing of the innocent. We should not have to accept vaccines from aborted cell lines when other more morally acceptable alternatives exist.
The Congregation for the Faith in Rome issued an instruction, Dignitas Personae in 2008. “The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death. This fundamental principle expresses a great “yes” to human life and must be at the centre of ethical reflection on biomedical research, which has an ever greater importance in today’s world.”
Vaccines are developed on the cultures of human tissue of babies killed before birth, precisely because they are human. It would be hypocritical of the government to purchase these vaccines when it has just recently rushed the anti-life Abortion Legislation Act through parliament on the pretext that the unborn child is not a human being. Is the government now prepared to concede that the unborn child is a human being?
There are two main aborted cell lines developed in 1964 and 1970 from healthy aborted children killed in the second trimester that are used to produce vaccines. There were hundreds of unborn babies killed before these cell lines were perfected. New cell lines continue to be developed from the human remains of babies killed before birth.
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur is hoping to have a morally acceptable vaccine ready for human testing later this year. Two American companies, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna expect to commence human testing, the former in July and the latter in September 2020. Both of these companies are using unethical aborted cell lines. The government should not purchase unethically produced vaccines from these companies.
Governments should seek to fund research on, and purchase, morally uncontentious vaccines, both to reward morally uncontentious research and to provide more citizens with vaccines they can in conscience accept. Internationally, there are many vaccines that have been developed using aborted baby cell lines. It is very much to be hoped that morally un-contentious vaccines will be made widely available to all peoples of the world, both to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and to combat other threats to life and health.”