Yes, I took the COVID-19 vaccine. Three shots of the Pfizer formulation, in fact. I’m as fully-vaccinated as the any abundantly-cautious person could wish, after having grave misgivings when the vaccine was first available. My biggest concern was the use of aborted children in vaccine development.

In the end, I found a statement from the American bishops persuasive, addressing moral considerations with Covid vaccines. It made two points, grossly oversimplified here (so I hope you’ll read their statement in full): 1) We need to push for ethical medical research and development, and using babies as research fodder isn’t ethical. 2) The circumstances of the current pandemic justify the use of the vaccines available, some of which are less objectionable than others.

I recall the release of Dignitas Personae by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2008, when the papacy was held by Benedict XVI, now Pope Emeritus. He was not known as squishy on the right to life. The document included a statement on the use of vaccines using cell lines of “illicit origin:” “danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available.”

I paid attention to the first part of that sentence when I first read it, without doing anything about the second. Now, on this platform that amounts to little more than a whisper, I’m catching up.

I want the CDC and everyone else concerned with vaccines to know I that I want an end to drug research and testing using cell lines originally derived from aborted children. Or you can call them aborted human fetuses, if “children” pains you.

“Too late,” I’m warned by some fellow Catholics, who think I’ve already cooperated with evil by accepting the Covid vaccine. As a back-pew Catholic with no formal training in moral theology, and in spite of some skepticism of authority, my decision was to get the vaccine because of what seemed at the beginning of the Covid pandemic to be unique urgency. Losing a friend to Covid was a factor. So was witnessing what the disease did to friends, both during the acute phase and in the weeks and months afterward.

What I did not find persuasive, then or now, were pleas from most medical professionals. I’ve spent too many decades listening to various health care providers’ opposition to pro-life public policies. I’ve listened to too many medical pros testify against conscience protections for colleagues who decline to participate in abortion. I’ve listened to physicians who serve in the legislature vote against protection for children who survive attempted abortion.

I’m hearing now about vaccine skepticism and about how members of this-or-that group are stubbornly refusing to get vaccinated. I hear about public service campaigns to reassure people about the relative safety of the vaccines as opposed to getting Covid.

I’ll never know the answer to this, but I have to wonder: how many people are skipping the vaccine because they don’t trust the medical profession? How much mistrust comes from seeing health care providers promote the direct intentional termination of human life?

Header image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay