Use of Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines and Medical Research Obscures the Value of All Human Life
Kyle Christopher McKenna, PhD
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Long NIH Study on fetal cell use
Abstract
This opinion addresses the licitness, quasi-benefits, and consequences of using aborted fetal tissue in vaccines and in medical research. The Catholic Church permits temporary use of vaccines generated using aborted fetal tissue to protect children from preventable diseases until alternative vaccines that do not use aborted fetal tissue are available. In medical research, cell lines that were generated from elective abortions should be avoided and alternative cell lines of licit origin utilized. The association between in utero Zika virus infections and microcephaly has increased the demand for fetal tissue to establish causality and to understand disease progression. These studies require extensive oversight as they could directly encourage elective abortions. The consequence of the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions is desensitization of beneficiaries to the original illicit act of abortion thereby obscuring the value of all human life and potentially leading to scandal.
Summary: The use of fetal tissue from elective abortions is commonplace in the pharmaceutical industry and in medical research. This opinion addresses the licitness, quasi-benefits, and consequences of using fetal tissue from elective abortions in vaccines and in medical research. All people of good conscience have the responsibility to voice opposition to the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in order to promote development of alternatives, affirm the value of all human life and limit scandal…
It is important to note that the use of these vaccines, generated from fetal tissue of elective abortions, can only occur on a temporary basis, as it represents a “very remote mediate material cooperation” (Pontifical Academy for Life 2006, 547) with the original illicit act of abortion. The distinctions between the different forms of cooperation were established by St. Alphonsus Liguori and can be categorized by the proximity of actions to the original illicit act. An example using vaccines generated from fetal tissue of an elective abortion follows:
• Principal agent: The mother who elects to terminate her pregnancy.
• Formal cooperator: The abortionist who agrees with the actions of the principal agent and supports her by performing the abortion.
• Immediate material cooperator: A nurse who does not agree with the actions of the principal agent but supports the abortionist in performance of the abortion.
• Mediate material cooperators: The nurse who does not agree with the actions of the principal agent but prepares her for the abortion and monitors her recovery post-abortion.
• Remote mediate material cooperators: The technicians at the abortion clinic that process and package fetal tissue for future use in scientific research. The scientists who arrange to receive aborted fetal tissue from the clinic for their research.
• Very remote mediate material cooperators: Individuals utilizing a product, for example a vaccine that was generated utilizing aborted fetal tissue.
Even the distant cooperation represented by these vaccines needs to be avoided as it is:
moral coercion of the conscience of the parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and the population as a whole at risk.…[Therefore,] doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. (Pontifical Academy for Life 2006, 549, 547–8)
Conclusions
Each medical benefit or scientific advance from the use of fetal tissue from elective abortionsdesensitizes beneficiaries, scientists, and doctors to the original evil act that produced these cells. Aborted fetal tissues used in laboratories are minimized to merely human cells, and the human beings whose lives were taken to provide those cells become irrelevant and with time forgotten. Of greatest concern is that desensitization ultimately leads to scandal by erroneously validating elective abortions for a greater good. Without careful oversight, the fetus could become, like fetal tissue cell lines, merely cells, cultured within the uterus for scientific exploration. All people of good conscience have the responsibility to voice opposition to the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in order to promote development of alternatives, affirm the value of all human life, and limit scandal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027112/