One area of substantial controversy over the multiple available COVID-19 vaccines is the use of fetal cell lines in their production. Needless to say, those who oppose abortion on moral grounds (as I do), based on the belief that a person is already alive inside the womb before birth (which I hold), are wary of anything that necessarily involves the death of an unborn baby.
For this reason, it is important to understand what is and is not happening, and to be reasonable and consistent in how we think through the matter and apply it to our lives.
In this post, my focus is more on the underlying worldview and moral implications of the use of fetal cell lines in the COVID-19 vaccines than on whether you should get a vaccine. With that said, the application will be in favor of the vaccine (or at least against declining the vaccine due to this particular issue).
What Fetal Cell Lines Are and Are Not
There are currently vaccines against COVID-19 from four different companies: Astra-Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer. All four use fetal cell lines in one form or another, even if only for testing purposes (Mercedes, Schimelpfening, UNMC, Yates).
However, it is important to note that fetal cell lines do not require obtaining any new, additional cells by aborting any additional babies. Fetal cell lines are produced in a lab. In all cases, cells from an unborn baby that died decades ago are replicated (UNMC, Yates).
This is the first moral consideration to consider, and it is a major one. If producing these vaccines required an ongoing supply of aborted babies, I could not take the vaccine in good conscience. I can't imagine how anyone who is pro-life could, or that God would approve of using such a vaccine.
But since this is not what is happening, we cannot dismiss the vaccine on the basis that you are contributing to the ongoing killing of unborn human babies. Taking the vaccine does not contribute to an ongoing evil act.
Opposition To The Vaccine Due To Past Evils
These vaccines do not require additional fetal tissue to be procured, so they do not require additional abortions. Nevertheless, there are a number of believers who, as a result of the connection to abortion that does exist, refuse to take the vaccine and insist that this is the only morally acceptable, non-sinful decision to make.
My Position
That is not a position I agree with.
Of course I agree with the underlying position that abortion is evil. The jury seems to be out regarding the extent to which the original fetal tissue came from abortion or natural death by miscarriage. But to the extent that the fetal cell lines came from a baby who died by abortion, I can certainly see why people are not okay its origins.
Where I disagree is on what we are to do in light of that information.
In practice (if not outright in theory), the position of those who reject the vaccine because of how the fetal cell lines originated is that if something results from a past evil action, even if the result is a good thing, we must still reject whatever that result is and not utilize it in any way. But that is an unsustainable position to told. It has no moral basis and no one follows it consistently at all.
Moral Reasoning In Defense of Vaccines From Fetal Cell Lines
First of all, we must think reasonably – dare I say, conservatively – and realize that we have to work with the situation as it is and not as we would want it to be. No matter what we do, we cannot undo the evil act that was done in the past. It is not a question of whether the ends justify the means because we aren’t deciding whether to commit the act in question. It has been done and there is nothing we can do about that.
It would be an entirely different matter if the vaccine required a steady stream of new fetal tissue and thus, continued abortion. But no future baby needs to be killed for this vaccine to exist and be produced. It will, however, save some babies and a whole lot of adults.
In cost accounting, we often talk about the relevance of information to decision making. That basically just poses the question of whether something is actually affected by a decision or not. If you already spent money on a non-refundable plane ticket (and for our purposes, it cannot be rescheduled or changed), but something comes up to make you reconsider going on the trip, then whatever money you spent on the ticket is irrelevant. This is because the outcome is the same regardless of your decision; whether you go or not, the money is already spent and gone.
This is no different. Nothing we do affects those babies who were killed in the womb. They don’t become more dead any time someone gets a shot, and they don’t become less dead when someone refuses one.
What our decisions can affect, however, is whether we and others get infected with COVID-19 and, for a very small proportion of those infected but a very large overall number, get seriously ill or die.
Of course, if you object to the vaccine for other reasons (e.g. you think it will be dangerous), that is a whole different discussion. Whether or not the vaccine will be harmful is certainly a relevant question to decision making.
Consistency
Inconsistency is usually a good sign that people maybe have some understanding, if only unconscious, that the principle they espouse has flaws or at least some serious limits.
And people are not consistent about this when it comes to medicine. I only have a vague understanding of the absolutely horrifying things that have been done in the name of medical science and research, such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments in the United States or the outlandish cruelties of Josef Mengele and the medical establishment in nazi Germany. But even that vague understanding is enough to know that if people were consistent, they would probably have to avoid modern medicine entirely.
Just because medical researchers do something wicked does not mean that it is not effective. That is moral wish casting; it is not how reality works. And it is often hard to draw a distinct line between what treatments and medical knowledge came from ethical means and from wicked ones because knowledge leads to further investigation and further knowledge. If you look hard enough, you will probably find a connection between most medical treatments and knowledge gained by cruelty and evil towards Jews, slaves, the poor, and others. I'm sure many fruits can ultimately be traced back to the poisonous tree - if we wanted to be consistent.
And yet, people tend not to be willing to avoid all modern medicine on the grounds that they might be be benefiting from the pain and suffering of past victims of medical violence.
Even if they aren’t consciously thinking about it, they realize that they aren’t harming anyone, they cannot change the past, but they can change the future for the better.
Christianity Relies on the This Principle
The defining aspect of the Christian worldview is the cross. Our entire worldview is based on a bunch of people intentionally and wickedly murdering someone. And that someone was not even just someone, but the perfect Son of God.
We as Christians do not disavow the gospel and the death of Jesus that leads to forgiveness of our sins because it was the product of murder. Instead, we thank God and praise Him for taking what others intended for evil and using it for an eternally good result.
But if someone who opposes vaccines because of past evil that was necessary in making them were consistent, how could they embrace the fact that Jesus was murdered? Because ultimately it was God’s will? But what isn't the will of an omnipotent and all-knowing God in at least some broad, ultimate sense? And why wouldn’t it be God’s will that lives be saved despite someone else’s past sins now, with the vaccine? If the cross was God's will, then evidently God's will is not that we avoid any good thing if it resulted from someone else's past sin.
For that matter, consider the story of Jacob's son Joseph. Many lives were saved because he was in Pharaoh's court in Egypt and was able to interpret a dream that God gave Pharaoh which showed him there would be seven years of famine after seven years of plenty. With this knowledge, large amounts of grain was stored ahead of time so everyone could have food during the famine. But the whole reason Joseph was there in the first place was because his brothers sinned by selling him into slavery (Genesis 37:26-28).
Should all the people who were saved because Joseph was in Egypt have refused to eat the stored grain during the seven years of famine because Joseph ended up in that situation due to his brothers’ evil acts? Of course not. As Joseph said to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to keep many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).
Or speaking of being pro-life, if a woman gets pregnant through sinful means, such as premarital sex or adultery, would we say that she should abort the child? After all, although children are very difficult to bear and then raise, they are ultimately a blessing. This is even more extreme, since the sin in this case was that of the person who benefits from it's result. Since such a child arose as a result of sin, and most importantly, would not have come into existence without sinning, shouldn’t the child be destroyed rather than loved and cherished? After all, such a child is fruit from the poisonous tree, right?
Or perhaps, at the very least, the child should be put up for adoption so that the parents cannot be blessed by the child whose origin was sin? Then again, what adoptive parent could take that child and love it as their own? Adoptive parents tend to bond with and love their children and be blessed by the experience, so how can that be justified if the child's existence rose from sin? You still have someone benefiting from a sin.
But literally no Christian thinks that way about such babies just because of how they were conceived. And I am probably only slightly exaggerating when I say that. After all, we're not a bunch of pro-choice activists who appeal to the existence of rape victims to justify abortion; we don't tell people that their lives are invalid and they should have been killed in the womb because of the sin involved in their conception.
Rather, we understand that God is a God of redemption. He takes other people's sins - and sometimes, even our own - and uses them to fulfill His good purposes. Sometimes, that good purpose is evident to the world. Sometimes, we won't find out the purpose on this side of eternity. It is just as true either way.
The evil intentions and actions of people who commit wicked deeds do not mean that we should refuse to accept the good that can result in spite of their deeds and intentions.
What About In Civil Law?
One might counter that there are instances in law where the evil origin of something is seen as rendering all that arose from it to be worthy of destruction. For example, in the United States, if police illegally search a person’s home without a warrant or probable cause, they cannot use evidence they find in court. It is called the exclusionary rule.
But two things must be said of that. First, human civil law is often flawed and based on poor moral reasoning. Secondly, in the case of things like the exclusionary rule, there is another factor that does not take place here: the rule exists in part as a deterrent. It is not making a metaphysical claim about making good things arise out of bad. It is meant to discourage police from violating the constitutional rights of the individual by saying you can only use evidence that is secured through legal and ethical means. That is a substantial and material difference from many instances of good things arising from someone else's wickedness.
Conclusion
Nothing I have said here deals with questions about the vaccines' safety or effectiveness. Nothing has challenged the belief you may have that such a rushed vaccine is too risky to take, given the comparative risk of the COVID-19 virus. Nothing I have said even challenged broader beliefs that vaccines do more harm than good.
But there is no moral reason to not take an otherwise safe
and effective vaccine, one that would save many lives, just because it is making
good directly out of someone else’s past wickedness. God saved many of our
lives eternally by doing just that.
Works Cited
- Mercedes, Cheryl. "VERIFY: Yes, Johnson & Johnson used aborted fetal cell lines in its creation of the COVID-19 vaccine." <https://www.kcentv.com/article/news/verify/johnson-and-johnson-aborted-fetal-cells-verify/285-6d4fe5ba-3763-4d4e-ba32-294f3fa39020>. 28 March 2021 (includes interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja).
- Schimelpfening, Nancy. "No, Fetal Tissue Wasn’t Used to Create the J&J COVID-19 Vaccine." Healthline, <https://www.healthline.com/health-news/no-fetal-tissue-wasnt-used-to-create-the-jj-covid-19-vaccine>. Accessed 28 March 2021.
- UNMC. "You Asked, We Answered: Do the COVID-19 Vaccines Contain Aborted Fetal Cells?" University of Nebraska Medical Center, <https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells>. 28 March 2021.
- Yates, Natasha. "Does the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Contain Aborted Fetal Cells?" GPs Can, <https://www.gps-can.com.au/covid19-blog/covid-vaccine-fetal-cells>. Accessed 28 March 2021.
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