Immorally produced vaccines

Deleted User wrote: »

Being morally opposed to product X because of a connection to something that's against your religion is fine. But if you, at the same time, quite happily avail of products A, B, C and D which are all connected to other things that are against your religion, then you're a hypocrite and should be prepared to be called out for it. That is 100% relevant to the discussion.

You can't cherry pick this element of Christianity and say "the bible says this is wrong, so I believe it's wrong*", when there are 400 other things the Bible says are wrong that you do on a daily basis.

Why would you be morally opposed to stem cell research? Because its against your religion? So, why choose to uphold that aspect and none of the other things which are against your religion?

Do you eat pork?
Have you ever eaten a cheeseburger?
Ever worn clothing made from nylon?
Did overtime on a Sunday?
Cut the hair on the side of your head?
Eaten shellfish?
Touched a woman who was on her period?

Why are those things banned by the Bible, but you find them allowable, yet stem cell research is against your religion? Where's the consistency? Cos from my POV it looks like you're saying you (not you personally, I'm talking to Christians in general) can do whatever you want but others have to do what the Bible says

It is my contention that people who fit into that category are not really morally opposed to e.g. stem cell research. They just don't like it, don't want others to do it, and are using religion as a trojan horse to enforce their will upon others.

*I've read that abortion is only mentioned once in the bible, and that's only where it gives instructions on how to do it safely

I'm going to deal with what's relevant here.

I've not even stated my position on this question, which is that I'd probably lean towards taking the vaccination.

I'm simply stating that this is an interesting question that is worthy of discussion.

Do you eat pork?
Have you ever eaten a cheeseburger?
Ever worn clothing made from nylon?
Did overtime on a Sunday?
Cut the hair on the side of your head?
Eaten shellfish?
Touched a woman who was on her period?

Christianity teaches that dietary and ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ. If you're going to criticise my religion at least do it knowledgeably.

It is slightly irritating when people come in here with the latest "gotcha" argument, that is based on ignorant assumptions rather than a full understanding of what Christianity is.

Iscreamkone wrote: »

Christianity is the belief that Mr. Jesus Christ is divine.
That’s me out. (No evidence)

That's your entitlement. I'm not forcing you to agree with me. I'm really interested in discussing the topic in the OP because it is interesting.

antiskeptic wrote: »

??

Allow yourself to be injected with a product dependent on the killing of another human being .. for the sake of other human being?

What kind of ethical mathematics is that? No greater love hath a foetus than that they lay their life down..?

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For vaccines to be successful at societal level, people have to trust that the vaccines are safe. And in big numbers they don't.

And not without reason: you'd have to belong to the truly gullible to believe that the claims to safety are objectively true. You'd have to trust corporates, you'd have to trust scientific research funded by pharma, you'd have to trust government with a doctrinal allegience, you'd have to trust...

Whether or not a vaccine is safe isn't the point. The point is: who do you rely on to establish it is safe.

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The neighbour who, for whatever reason, cannot avail of the vaccine will just have to suck it up I'm afraid. I got mouths to feed and am not planning to put myself or my ability to provide in the hands of agencies I have little faith in.

I don't think Jesus meant you should be a thick for your neighbour..
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You could say all this vaccine reticence stems from Wakefield (the equally maligned and stricken off co-author of that infamous paper was recently exonerated - the court ripping a new arsehole in the General Medical Councils kangeroo court proceedings. Oh dear!)

But for me its just knowing how life works. Man is corrupt and I see everday how the reality works compared to the corporate/political speak.

You might suppose the approval processes capable of providing true and accurate information. Yet seldom does a month pass when there isn't some other other corporate up somewhere in the world for operating grossly illegally. Pharma being a frequent enough contributor to the noxious corporate practice.

They kill, they bribe, they falsify, they buy off, they work to control those who are supposed to control them, they destroy the planet, they addict people.

Corporations are sociopathic. Inject them into my arm for my neighbour? Not a hope.

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From the editor of The Lancet on the quality of (medical) scientific research. As if it would be amy different...


https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1/fulltext

Reminds me of a course I was doing back in the 90's We were told by a professor in a well established agriculture college that roundup was so safe you could drink it, as long as you take a spoon full of soil afterwards.

Something to do with the way it reacted to soil, that was what people were listening to year's ago, and that chemical is lethal, it's definitely not safe.

Look, listening to the Catholic church for medical or scientific advice isn't really a great idea.

In the same vein you wouldn't ask a doctor for deep theological opinions would you?

Vaccines have been instrumental in improving public health and have almost completely irradicated diseases such as polio and TB.

This is really a question about human rights, and is only really a religious question in the sense that objective truth, rights, morality, natural law etc. originates with God, written on the hearts of men. You don't need to be religious to believe in universal human rights (which originate from natural law) precisely because they originate with the Creator.

The question is whether it is appropriate to harvest, experiment upon and ultimately destroy human life in order to develop life improving/prolonging/saving medicines. The majority of right minded people would object to say, people being murdered so their organs could be used to save other people, even if that one life taken would save ten. In order to get around this principle they engage in some mental gymnastics in order to basically argue that the unborn are not really people, so it is not morally objectionable to destroy them.

Or instead, as we have seen in this thread, you can engage in whataboutery to avoid having this uncomfortable argument at all. "Who are you say that human life should be protected when xyz was carried out by people who claim the same beliefs as you?" Whataboutery, at best, comes from the narrow minded who genuinely cannot see the big picture and cave to their instinct to attack the person making an argument, rather than the argument itself. At worst it is a deliberate, insidious tactic. Either way the result is the same, paralysed discussion and the preservation of the status quo. The north was mentioned, the British used this tactic expertly for years as part of their policy of containment.

Whataboutery can be used in nearly every argument one could care to think of. Teachers arguing for better protections for their schoolchildren? "Who are you to go on about protecting schoolchildren when you all used to beat them, when you weren't sexually abusing them of course". Horse lovers saying that our equine friends should be better looked after? "Who are you to go on about horse welfare when some of your lot race them and they sometimes break legs?". Atheists and materialists arguing that religion oppresses people? "Who are you to on about human rights when millions were murdered and oppressed by people who claimed the same view as you?" I could go on, but you get the point. Whataboutery is rarely an honest engagement in discussion, and even when it is, as I said above, it merely serves to stifle and derail discussion. And yes, I see the humour in the fact that part of my point is a bit of whataboutery about whataboutery.

Back to vaccines, it is clear to me that the same principal applies to vaccines derived from the destruction of human life as I outlined in my second paragraph. A difference is, though, that those who are born and are adults can make a decision about their own life. There are umpteen examples in human history of people deciding, or at least risking, sacrificing their own lives to save others. In a hypothetical scenario where there was a lethal pandemic and it proved necessary for lives of some to be sacrificed to achieve a cure, we could be assured that people would volunteer.

The unborn however, have no choice, they cannot consent, or, as I should say, heroically volunteer. Deliberately setting out to destroy the lives of babies or children, or the differently abled, the elderly etc. is morally wrong, especially when the point and aim of such a horrible act is to prolong someone else's life or otherwise derive benefit from such horror. Even if the life was not destroyed with the direct express aim of this benefit, it is still wrong to benefit from such an act, and dangerous in the extreme to encourage scientific experimentation on the "harvest" of such heinous acts - it is a way beyond the thin end of the wedge. You can't just put your head in the sand about where a treatment comes from.

So, those who are committed to human rights should act in a consistent way which respects these rights. They should encourage and support the development of medical treatments (including vaccines) which do not directly use or depend upon the harvested cells of a murdered child. They should view medical experiments which use such cells as unethical and seek for them to be banned on such grounds.

But what to do after "the horse has bolted" and a medical treatment has been developed which does use such cells? Should you use it? I have given this some thought... (and here they are )

In a scenario where it is a treatment for a personal illness (i.e. not contagious), say stem cells from the unborn (it is worth mentioning that much of the development of stem cell treatments don't actually use stem cells from the unborn and much of the research is moving away from harvesting the unborn) being used to regrow cartilage in joints or even perhaps "curing" paralysis or other disabilities, the correct position is surely not to use such treatments regardless of if there are no ethically acceptable alternatives.

What if it is not a personal illness but it is contagious? By not taking the treatment others could be endangered. This is more complicated. It would be necessary to look at it on a case by case basis taking into account factors such as (but not limited to) the mortality rate, the severity of the condition/disease and how easily (or not) it is spread.

Lets say that the illness is a "mild" one or a condition with which it is perfectly possible to live with. Lets say there was a vaccine developed for the common cold/sniffles (not flu). If this was made unethically it should not be taken, because it is not that bad and there are other treatments.

But what if it is something like Covid? In this case we do not really need to make much of a decision because there are vaccines developed which do not directly use harvested unborn children. In this instance people should just refuse to use the vaccines which do use such cells and we don't need to start looking at other factors such as the severity and mortality rate.

But lets say that there was a contagious disease with a 90% mortality rate and the only vaccine was an unethically developed one and it was somehow demonstrated (unlikely) that it was impossible for an ethically developed one to arise. What I mean here, to be clear, is that the vaccine actually exists when the decision to take it or not is being made. In such an instance the person taking the vaccine is not deliberately involved with the immoral act but rather incidental and remote. This, plus the fact that so many would suffer and die given the severity of the disease should you not take it, and that no mitigating actions can sufficiently address this (for example, if the disease was not that infectious and precautions could be taken to make transmission unlikely a vaccine probably wouldn't be needed) gives rise, in my mind, to a scenario where a moral person can take such a vaccine despite their well founded reservations. But it is difficult.

The answer to this dilemma is for ethical medical research to be encouraged and unethical research discouraged and banned, which it is in many cases. I do not believe for one moment that it is impossible for science to develop treatments ethically. It would be a terrible mistake to adopt an ends justifies the means approach to ethics as this would undoubtedly cause and lead to great horrors. Almost everyone agrees with me on this point, which is why it is necessary for some to argue that the destruction of the unborn and their harvest for medical research and development is not unethical. They don't seem to say "yeah it's morally wrong and unethical but necessary." Rather they say it is not morally wrong or unethical.

We are back, full circle, to the fundamental right to life.

smacl wrote: »

A few thoughts here. Firstly, regardless of whether you are pro-choice or pro-life I think you would agree that no one has or will have an abortion for the purpose of providing material for scientific research. As such, whether or not fetal tissue from abortion is used for such research has no impact on the rate of abortion.

Fetal tissue is quite valuable and forms a not insignificant part of the abortion industry. With vaccines, the relevant cells seem to have been harvested years ago. Two of the main ones are from 1964 and 1970 respectively: one coming from a female baby that was aborted because the family felt they had too many children, the second being a 14 week male baby aborted for "psychiatric reasons", from a 27 year old woman in the UK.

I don't find the argument that "abortion happens anyway" as very persuasive. The fact that an intrinsically evil act may occur for a main reason different from how or why you ultimately benefit does not remove moral or ethical stumbling blocks and the moral cooperation of those who benefit with said evil.

You state that "you would agree that no one has or will have an abortion for the purpose of providing material for scientific research". This is problematic, as if the principle is accepted that it is acceptable to deliberately destroy human life and use the remains for experimentation and research, then why in the future should more human life be destroyed to harvest them for the medical benefit of others, should it be viewed as necessary or desirable? You are setting up a clear "the end justifies the means" position. Most acknowledge that, which is why they will argue that the original act was not an evil one.

However it is vital to note that it is not solely a case of "this can lead to horrible things" (although it could certainly lead to repeated terrible acts and "greater" ones too) it's a case that something horrible and evil has already happened, should I be part of it?

Secondly, I fail to see what good can be achieved by rejecting a vaccine that has already been developed. At the same time, I think it is morally dubious to place the lives of others at risk by rejecting a vaccine based on the above. What precisely would you hope to achieve by doing this?

The Vatican produced the below document in relation to this topic (with specific reference to Rubella vaccine) 15 years ago and should be read in full. However, an extract:

Application to the use of vaccines prepared from cells coming from embryos or foetuses aborted voluntarily


In the specific case under examination, there are three categories of people who are involved in the cooperation in evil, evil which is obviously represented by the action of a voluntary abortion performed by others: a) those who prepare the vaccines using human cell lines coming from voluntary abortions; b) those who participate in the mass marketing of such vaccines; c) those who need to use them for health reasons.

Firstly, one must consider morally illicit every form of formal cooperation (sharing the evil intention) in the action of those who have performed a voluntary abortion, which in turn has allowed the retrieval of foetal tissues, required for the preparation of vaccines. Therefore, whoever - regardless of the category to which he belongs — cooperates in some way, sharing its intention, to the performance of a voluntary abortion with the aim of producing the above-mentioned vaccines, participates, in actuality, in the same moral evil as the person who has performed that abortion. Such participation would also take place in the case where someone, sharing the intention of the abortion, refrains from denouncing or criticizing this illicit action, although having the moral duty to do so (passive formal cooperation).

In a case where there is no such formal sharing of the immoral intention of the person who has performed the abortion, any form of cooperation would be material, with the following specifications.
As regards the preparation, distribution and marketing of vaccines produced as a result of the use of biological material whose origin is connected with cells coming from foetuses voluntarily aborted, such a process is stated, as a matter of principle, morally illicit, because it could contribute in encouraging the performance of other voluntary abortions, with the purpose of the production of such vaccines. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that, within the chain of production-distribution-marketing, the various cooperating agents can have different moral responsibilities.

However, there is another aspect to be considered, and that is the form of passive material cooperation which would be carried out by the producers of these vaccines, if they do not denounce and reject publicly the original immoral act (the voluntary abortion), and if they do not dedicate themselves together to research and promote alternative ways, exempt from moral evil, for the production of vaccines for the same infections. Such passive material cooperation, if it should occur, is equally illicit.

As regards those who need to use such vaccines for reasons of health, it must be emphasized that, apart from every form of formal cooperation, in general, doctors or parents who resort to the use of these vaccines for their children, in spite of knowing their origin (voluntary abortion), carry out a form of very remote mediate material cooperation, and thus very mild, in the performance of the original act of abortion, and a mediate material cooperation, with regard to the marketing of cells coming from abortions, and immediate, with regard to the marketing of vaccines produced with such cells. The cooperation is therefore more intense on the part of the authorities and national health systems that accept the use of the vaccines.

However, in this situation, the aspect of passive cooperation is that which stands out most. It is up to the faithful and citizens of upright conscience (fathers of families, doctors, etc.) to oppose, even by making an objection of conscience, the ever more widespread attacks against life and the "culture of death" which underlies them. From this point of view, the use of vaccines whose production is connected with procured abortion constitutes at least a mediate remote passive material cooperation to the abortion, and an immediate passive material cooperation with regard to their marketing. Furthermore, on a cultural level, the use of such vaccines contributes in the creation of a generalized social consensus to the operation of the pharmaceutical industries which produce them in an immoral way.

Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines13 (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection14 with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.

As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health. However, if the latter are exposed to considerable dangers to their health, vaccines with moral problems pertaining to them may also be used on a temporary basis. The moral reason is that the duty to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave inconvenience. Moreover, we find, in such a case, a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children. This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles15.

In any case, there remains a moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically. However, the burden of this important battle cannot and must not fall on innocent children and on the health situation of the population - especially with regard to pregnant women.
To summarize, it must be confirmed that:

• there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems;
• as regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one's own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole - especially for pregnant women;
• the lawfulness of the use of these vaccines should not be misinterpreted as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing and use, but is to be understood as being a passive material cooperation and, in its mildest and remotest sense, also active, morally justified as an extrema ratio due to the necessity to provide for the good of one's children and of the people who come in contact with the children (pregnant women);
• such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible.

https://www.immunize.org/talking-about-vaccines/vaticandocument.htm

smacl wrote: »

I think the key point for those who share your ethical dilemma from that document is the paragraph below.

At the same time, and while sincerely not wishing to re-enter the endless quagmire of pro-life vs pro-choice arguments, it is worth noting that the larger part of the population do not share this ethical dilemma. It is also worth noting that there are other groups who would potentially reject other vaccines based on other ethical dilemmas, e.g. veganism. Should we therefore reject any form of medical research on the basis of any one subsection of our society having an ethical objection to it? To me this represents the few acting against the greater good on the basis of their personally held beliefs. The case raised in your linked papal document in relation to Rubella is a very good example of this, which prior to its availability was the cause of thousands of deaths and many thousands more debilitating illnesses every year. While I accept that those who are pro-life might consider the lives saved based on material garnered from an 'evil' act, from a pro-choice perspective allowing thousands of preventable deaths to take place because of a religious belief would be a considerably greater evil.

As I mentioned a few times in my posts, this is where the argument ends up. That the destruction of a certain category of human life is not immoral or unethical, perhaps because it is not really human life at all? This is important because it is an acknowledgement that medicines etc. should be developed ethically and there should be limits and such, particularly with regard to the destruction and experimentation upon human life. We could be in broad agreement on that principle (or maybe not as I will elaborate on below, but hold that thought) and disagreement, then, is centered around the right to life and cannot be ignored or swept aside. (Of course others might make the argument that it may be unethical but the ends justify the means).

You seem to believe that whether something is ethical or morally good (or evil etc.) rests upon a majority feeling at a point in time? This is a dangerous and unworthy position - not to mention patently untrue. Do you believe in universal human rights? Human history is full of instances where people believed and acted in ways which they viewed as acceptable in a society but were later viewed to be deeply wrong. Someone who seems to advocate that morality is relative and based upon majority opinion cannot say that these people were wrong at the time, but only that it is wrong now (unless opinion were to change of course, then it would be right again). It is no proper way for a society to be run - although this materialist conception of right and wrong is quite popular at the moment.

As for veganism, we are back to my original point, this is really about human rights. Animals, while important and are undoubtedly horribly mistreated the world over, are not the same as humans and I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why they should have the same rights as humans.

But if we expand your argument, you are basically saying here that morality and ethics should not be a consideration as any actions could conceivably be viewed as immoral or unethical by someone. Or, in conjunction with your above point, something is only immoral or unethical when a majority of people at a snapshot in time think it is, an opinion which can of course change, perhaps many times. Yes, if such a position on right and wrong was indeed true I would agree that it is a waste of thing to even think about these things.

But I don't, I believe that there is such a thing as universal right and wrong - in other words such a thing as universal human rights. I would argue that the majority agree with this point. The fact that some simultaneously say they believe in human rights yet then display (a probably unthinking) position based on a materialist philosophy only serves to underline how the philosophical foundation of western post christian society is fundamentally incoherent and schizophrenic.

While the position of the Catholic church in Ireland is no doubt based on the reasons given in the quoted paragraph above, the cynic in me wonders what the effect of advocating against the vaccine would have on the position of the church in this country and how much that influenced their decision. I think they made the morally correct decision for what it is worth, and hope it was for the right reasons. There does increasingly seem to be a sharp divergence between the morality espoused by the Vatican and that held by the people of this country.

Yes, the Irish Catholic church, noted for going with the flow, seeking popularity and saying what it thinks society wants to hear. I did say you were unbiased in another post, but this is worrying. I give you a document from 15 years ago where these very issues are deeply considered, logically played out (this is not a new issue after all) and a conclusion reached. The Church essentially reiterate this guidance today, you say there is "no doubt" that the guidance is based on the reasons outlined, yet you then wonder if they did it because it would be unpopular to do otherwise? When it is clearly demonstrated that this has long been considered in a thoughtful, extensive way, and the rationale for the explanation clearly explained? When the conclusion seems to be one you agree with? I would not use the word cynical" to describe your argument here, it is most unworthy of you.