“Without dissecting in detail the ethical dilemma brought on by using vaccines originally developed from induced abortions, what are we as faithful Catholics to do? It is important to note that some countries have produced and are using vaccines derived from nonhuman tissue, such as the Japanese rubella vaccine grown with the use of rabbit kidney cells. Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the use of these particular vaccines in the United States.”

The most significant advance in the field of public health in the last one hundred years, other than the creation of a sanitary water supply, has been the widespread use of vaccines for immunization. These vaccines prevent a multitude of serious illnesses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 30, 1999) and their use has had an inconceivably beneficial effect on the health of all U.S. citizens.

Unfortunately, many of these vaccines, among them the single and multipurpose vaccines against rubella (German measles), measles and mumps, the vaccine against chickenpox and the vaccines against hepatitis A, produced here in the United States, were developed from strains derived from voluntarily aborted human fetuses, some as late as 1985. As indicated by the Very Rev. Angel Rodriguez Luno, in writing a commentary on the text of an opinion given by the Pontifical Academy for Life on June 9, 2005, “From an epidemiological perspective, vaccination on a large scale is indispensable in the battle against … infectious diseases.”

“Without dissecting in detail the ethical dilemma brought on by using vaccines originally developed from induced abortions, what are we as faithful Catholics to do? It is important to note that some countries have produced and are using vaccines derived form nonhuman tissue, such as the Japanese rubella vaccine grown with the use of rabbit kidney cells. Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the use of these particular vaccines in the United States.”

The Very Rev. Luno, writing in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, feels that “the whole question can be summed up in the following four points:

   1. There is a serious obligation to use alternative vaccines when they exist, and to object conscientiously to the use of those that are morally problematic.

   2.  With regard to vaccines to which there is no alternative, we should emphasize both the duty to strive for the development of other vaccines and also the lawfulness of using the existing vaccines in the meantime, to the extent that it is necessary to avoid a serious health risk to the general population.

   3.  The fact that it is permissible to use these vaccines is not construed as as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing and use, but rather as … morally justified as extrema ratio-an extreme form of duty to provide for the welfare of one’s own children and of the persons who come in contact with them, especially pregnant women.
 
   4. Cooperation occurs in the context of a moral constraint on the conscience of parents, who are faced with the dilemma of acting against their conscience or else endangering the health of their own children and the general population. This is plainly an unjust alternative, which must be eliminated as soon as possible.”
 
Therefore, at present, we Catholics should use those vaccines for our families, which are necessary, both to ensure their health and the health of our fellow citizens. However, wherever possible, we are obliged to use alternative vaccines not derived from induced abortions. In addition, we have an obligation to inform our elected representatives that we support legislation to have the FDA approve appropriate alternative vaccines not derived from induced abortions.

We must pressure, as best we can, the pharmaceutical companies, which manufacture these vaccines, to produce alternative vaccines not derived from fetal tissue resulting from induced abortions. Catholic health professionals should consider themselves morally obligated to inform their patients of the derivation of the vaccines they wish to administer and, if possible, have alternative approved vaccines available.

Hans E. Geisler, MD, KM
Certified in Health Care Ethics by the National Catholic Bioethics Center

*Copyright 2008 --- Culture of Life Foundation. Permission granted for unlimited use. Attribution required.