Vaccines

I had heard that some vaccines were made using cells from aborted fetuses. That disturbed me, but I didn't check it out at the time. Recently a friend sent me an article about embryo adoption because we had a conversation about it a while back. It had some information about a company called avm biotech which is committed to producing vaccines without aborted fetal cell lines. So I started reading more about all this. Here's my info track so far. I thought you might find it interesting.

The article my friend sent me

http://www.seattlearch.org/FormationAndEducation/Progress/VaticanBioethicsDocument01-22-09.htm

the company that is trying to do things ethically
http://www.avmbiotech.com/home.html

more info about the vaccines and how they're produced
http://www.lifecanada.org/html/science/Vaccines/VaccineQuestionandAnswers.html

Moral implications
"On Vaccines Made From Cells of Aborted Fetuses - Pontifical Academy for Life Response "
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1452002/posts

"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 -- parents, 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 parents have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines [13] -- 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 objection [14] with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human fetal origin.

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Summary

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.