Moral vaccines

Have you ever been complicit in an abortion?

If you've ever been vaccinated, you very well may have, without even knowing it.
(That's pretty much all of us, isn't it?)

Some vaccines to combat the following diseases:
Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Hepatitis A
Chicken Pox
Polio
Rabies
Smallpox

have been derived from cell lines which came from the remains of an aborted child. (One in 1964 and another in 1970).

This fact has been known for some time, and many have wondered how morally licit it is for someone to use these vaccines. (The abortion, after all, took place some 40 years ago. The damage is already done, so to speak.) Clarity was rather elusive on this issue. Until now.

The Vatican has issued a very nice and clear document which lists the vaccines affected, and provides a concise argument outlining the moral issues involved.

Bottom line: using the vaccines is, in fact, a form of "remote material cooperation" in the evil of the abortions which were performed. (See the article for the other, more serious degrees of cooperation.) As such, it can be justified, if there is a serious reason for the vaccination (in most cases, there is), and if an alternative source is not possible or is very difficult to obtain.

But, the flip side of this is that every one of us has the moral obligation to try to do whatever we can to seek alternative vaccines not prepared from these lines or influence the appropriate pharmaceutical organizations (i.e. Merck, GlaxoSmithKline) to find alternative sources for the cell lines (in most cases this should not be a problem, it just requires a little effort on the company's part).

Knowledge is the key. Next time you have to get vaccinated, make sure you are armed with the appropriate information.