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The Pro-Life Case for the COVID Vaccines

Christine Flowers on

I’m pretty open about my pro-life views. I want abortion criminalized, banned and recognized as an act of inhumanity. I agree with Mother Theresa that “abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys two lives, the life of the child and the conscience of the mother.”

I am also a Catholic, and I am quite proud of the fact that my church is the most vocal, most unapologetically pro-life among the three great monotheistic traditions. I know that there are some Catholics who disagree with the church’s position on abortion, including our current president, but that’s their burden. They can deal with God when the time comes, and they are called to explain that moral compromise.

While we can never impose Catholic morality on secular law, we do need to follow its guidance in our personal choices. And one of those choices is whether to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

I got my first shot this week. It was the Moderna vaccine, which gave me some relief. The reason for that relief is the main point of this column.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, two of the three that have been cleared for use in the United States, were tested on cells derived from aborted babies.

Those cell lines have been cloned and reproduced, and date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Those two vaccines have some remote, generations-removed connection to elective abortions, but the vaccines themselves are so distant from the act itself that they cannot really be viewed as morally compromised. Not so with the third vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson, which used abortion-derived cells in the direct production of the vaccine.

 

This is where the dilemma arises, for those of us who call ourselves pro-life.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out with guidance that essentially tells the faithful that while some of the vaccines are morally compromised, it is better to be vaccinated than not to be. Choices can be made, and in some cases people can opt to wait for the vaccine they feel has less of a connection to the evil of abortion, but ultimately the church says the evil of the pandemic outweighs the temporal evil of using the products of abortion.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith stated last December that “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.” That principle was echoed by the Vatican COVID-19 commission which stated that “all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience.”

As if to punctuate the point, both Popes Francis and Benedict have been vaccinated.

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Copyright 2021 Christine Flowers, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com

 

 

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