Using Vaccines Obtained From Aborted Human Embryos
Further Clarification Needed for Parents, Researchers
Roman Catholic Blog
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-31437?l=english
Q: I
would love to see some more discussion or advice on the use of vaccines. [...]
If my memory served me correctly, in the
William E. May offers the following response:
A: The reader's question is specifically the one used in the heading of this
article. However, that issue was addressed earlier in response to another
reader's question (ZENIT, DEC. 15, 2010). It therefore seems proper here to raise the
following question: "Is it ever morally licit to use biological material
of illicit origin?"
I offer below a review of relevant Church teaching regarding this question and
other helpful sources.
Relevant Church Teaching
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2009 document "Dignitas Personae" (The Dignity of the Person)
addresses the question regarding the use of "biological material" of
illicit origin in numbers 34 and 35, and in doing to refers to relevant
teaching of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical "Evangelium
Vitae" (The Gospel of Life) and to the congregation's 1987 document "Donum Vitae" (Instruction on Respect for Human Life in
Its Origin and the Dignity of Procreation).
Number 34 of "Dignitas Personae" says the
problems are cooperation in evil and giving scandal. Number 35 says that a
different situation exists when researchers use "biological material"
of illicit origin produced apart from their research or commercially obtained
and refers to John Paul II's "Evangelum Vitae." It declares that "Donum Vitae" (Part I, No. 4) articulated the principle
to be followed: "The corpses of human embryos and fetuses [...], deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the
remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to
mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without
the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral
requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate
abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided."
Number 35 of "Dignitas Personae" considers
"the criterion of independence." According to it, the use of
"biological material" of illicit origin would be ethically
permissible if there is a clear separation between those who produce, freeze,
and cause the death of human embryos, and the researchers involved in
scientific experimentation. "Dignitas
Personae" expresses caution here, saying that of itself this criterion
might not be sufficient.
It
declares: "There is a duty to refuse to use such 'biological material'
even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions
of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when
there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial
fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove
oneself, within the area of one's own research, from a gravely unjust legal
situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life. Therefore, the
above-mentioned criterion of independence is necessary, but may be ethically
insufficient."
But it goes on to note that "within this general picture there exist
differing degrees of responsibility. Grave reasons may be morally proportionate
to justify the use of such 'biological material.' Thus, for example, 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 health care
system make other types of vaccines available. Moreover, in organizations where
cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those
who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no
voice in such a decision."
"Dignitas Personae" seems here to follow the position
taken by Elio Sgreccia
regarding use of a measles vaccine developed by making use of aborted fetuses; for
a summary of Sgreccia's position, see "On
Vaccines Made from Cells of Aborted Fetuses: Pontifical Academy for Life
Response," (ZENIT, JULY 25, 2005).
Comment
Christian Brugger offers important observations on
the treatment in "Dignitas Personae" of
this issue (see E. Christian Brugger, "Strengths
and Weaknesses of 'Dignitas Personae,'" in
"Symposium on 'Dignitas Personae,'"
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. Vol. 9.3. Autumn, 2009, 487-481). Commenting on the passage in number
35 about the duty to refuse to use such "biological material" even
when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of
those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, he wonders
whether this "would this apply to an epidemiologist in 2009 doing research
on … cell lines … or vaccines derived from those lines, given that both were
taken from electively aborted fetuses? The moral wrong -- the grave evil of
abortion -- was done nearly forty-five years ago. [...]
"Is a researcher's duty to refuse to work on those materials exceptionless, even when the refusal could result in harms
to the researcher and to his or her family? The text [of "Dignitas Personae"] indicates that it is not [exceptionless]. It states that grave reasons may be morally
proportionate to justify the use of such 'biological material.' But the
Instruction ["Dignitas Personae"],
following the 2005 Pontifical Academy for Life text, "Moral Reflections on
Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses," only
mentions parents consenting for grave reasons to their children's immunization.
Where does this leave morally conscientious researchers?"
I think
that if the research is the kind that reasonably promises to provide a great
benefit to unborn human subjects who are vulnerable to specific kinds of
pathologies from which the research will protect them, as was the case of the
research to which Brugger refers, then the kind of
exception allowed for by "Dignitas
Personae," (No. 35) is present. In all likelihood this kind of exception
may simply not have occurred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
in preparing the 1987 instruction "Donum
Vitae."
This is a subject that needs further clarification by the Church.
* * *
William E. May, is a Senior Fellow at the Culture of Life Foundation and retired Michael J. McGivney
Professor of Moral Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on
Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
[Readers may send questions regarding bioethics to bioethics@zenit.org. The
text should include your initials, your city and your state, province or
country. The fellows at the Culture
of Life Foundation will answer a select number of the questions that
arrive.]