News

By Terry Vanderheyden

NEEDHAM, Massachusetts, May 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S.-based Catholic Medical Association has called on drug manufacturers to stop using aborted fetal tissues in the production of vaccines.

Drawing on a recent Vatican Pontifical Academy for Life (PAFL) publication condemning unethical vaccines, the CMA explained in a release that “circumstances have arisen in which development and /or application of certain medical techniques, even though effective, are morally illicit and must be condemned and actively opposed.”

“An ethical problem exists today because some vaccines for rubella (Meruvax), Hepatitis A, (VAQTA, HAVRIX) as well as others are derived from cell lines originally prepared from tissue taken from voluntarily aborted fetuses,” the CMA release continued. “The question is to what degree do those who participate in production, distribution or use of these vaccines ‘cooperate in evil.’”

The CMA highlighted that it is morally illicit to prepare, distribute, or market vaccines that are made with aborted fetal tissues, because “it could contribute in encouraging the performance of other voluntary abortions, with the purpose of producing such vaccines,” quoting from the PAFL document, Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses.

The CMA proffers several guidelines as concerns the use of vaccines created by unethical use of aborted fetal tissues, including using an alternative vaccine – one not grown on fetal tissues – if available. The organization also states that “when no alternative vaccines are available ‘it is right [permissible] 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.’”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
  Abortion-Tainted New Flu Vaccine from Vaxin Uses Aborted Fetal Cell Lines
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05020703.html
  New Small Pox Vaccine May Use Aborted Fetal Cell Line
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/nov/01110503.html
  New Flu Vaccine To Use Cancer-Potential Aborted Fetal Cell Line
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/aug/02081603.html
  Another Vaccine Using Aborted Baby Tissue Marketed
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/may/01052504.html
  Pro-Lifers Rankle Fetal-Tissue Using Vaccine Makers at Shareholders Meeting
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03042804.html
  Pro-Life Group Urges Boycott of Foetal-Tissue Vaccine Manufacturer Merck
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/nov/02110901.html
  Vaccination Not Compulsory Under Canadian Law
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/apr/04042708.html
  New Ebola and HIV Vaccines Will Use Tissue from An Aborted Baby
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jul/02072506.html
  Pharmaceutical Giant Forced To Admit Aborted Fetal Tissue Used In Vaccines
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/mar/03032706.html
  New World Health Organization Chief Involved In Population Control Vaccine Scandal
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jan/03013003.html