Peter Espeut | The ethics of vaccines

I heard a caller on a talk show calling on the prime minister to personally get involved in the COVID-19 vaccination drive – to hit the road as he would do in an election campaign – to bring out the unvaccinated. I want to remind the caller that after the election campaign a year ago, the prime minister was only able to persuade 21 per cent of registered voters to vote for his party, a paltry number. As his popularity with voters has somewhat declined since then, the turnout for vaccination inspired by this strategy would be much less than desired.

Last week I was asked to issue a baptism certificate (based on my church register) for a woman now domiciled in the United States, who wanted to submit it to her employer to justify an exemption from being vaccinated. I advised the person applying on her behalf that it would do her no good; the Roman Catholic Church (starting with the Pope) supports vaccination, and that this position is well known. No employer should grant an exemption from vaccination to a Roman Catholic solely on the grounds of religion. Since the member was entitled to the baptism certificate, I issued it.

Locally, Catholic Church authorities have issued statements encouraging our members to welcome the vaccine as a moral duty towards the common good. My wife and I are fully vaccinated, as are almost all those I work with. A video of the Most Rev Jason Gordon, Archbishop of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, passionately preaching in support of vaccination, went viral here in Jamaica.

CLEAR POSITION

The official position of the Catholic Church is pretty clear, but that has not stopped an overly scrupulous fringe element within our Church from demurring. Most are not conspiracy theorists. They are aware that some of the cell lines used to develop some of the vaccines were obtained from aborted foetuses, and since abortion is murder, they feel that to take those vaccines would be supporting abortion, which would be sinful. This is a point which requires serious and rigorous ethical analysis.

Several decades ago, tissue harvested from the bodies of aborted babies was used to create certain cell lines for research purposes. The cells used for research are ‘daughters’ of the cells originally harvested. These abortion-derived cell lines are used as a ‘factory’ to manufacture certain vaccines (e.g. against rubella, chickenpox, COVID-19, etc.). The cells themselves, however, are not present in the vaccines that patients receive.

It is morally wrong to create abortion-derived cell lines and for pharmaceutical companies to utilise them. The use of vaccines produced with such cell lines should be avoided if comparable alternatives with no connection to abortion are available. Nevertheless, grave reasons (e.g. serious health risks) may justify the use of vaccines produced with these cell lines when there are no alternatives; everyone concerned for the sanctity of life should protest the use of these cell lines, and advocate for the development of vaccines with no connection to abortion.

Some companies don’t use abortion-derived cell lines at all, some have used such cell lines to test the efficacy of vaccines, and some are using such cell lines in the development and/or production phases. Neither Pfizer nor Moderna used an abortion-derived cell line in the development or production of their vaccines; however, such a cell line was used to test the efficacy of both vaccines. Thus, while neither vaccine is completely free from any use of abortion-derived cell lines, in these two cases the use is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion.

MORAL CONCERNS

The AstraZeneca and Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) vaccines raise additional moral concerns because an abortion-derived cell line is used not only for testing, but also in development and production.

The Catholic Church has declared that given that the COVID-19 virus can involve serious health risks, it can be morally acceptable to receive a vaccine that uses abortion-derived cell lines if there are no other available vaccines comparable in safety and efficacy with no connection to abortion. If it is possible to choose among a number of equally safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccine with the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines should be chosen.

If a vaccine with no connection to abortion-derived cell lines is not readily available, vaccines that used such cell lines only for testing would be preferable to those that use such cell lines for ongoing production. Such choices may not be possible; in that case, one may receive any of the clinically recommended vaccines in good conscience with the assurance that reception of such vaccines does not mean that the individual is immorally cooperating in abortion.

The official position of the Catholic Church is pretty clear, and we look forward to the students in our schools getting their jabs so that we can return to face-to-face teaching, and the rest of us can return to our normal lives.

The Rev Peter Espeut is a Roman Catholic deacon, and is Dean of Studies at St Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com