Spirit Daily

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Vaccinations In U.S., Canada, And Europe Derived From Babies Aborted In The 1960s

The Pope has squarely placed protection of God's creation as a major Christian cause, standing in stark contrast to a trend that saw many conservative Christians move in the opposite direction. As was the case with Pope John Paul II, he has repeatedly called for protection of the ecology, and last weekend -- at a Marian shrine -- the Pope, himself a conservative, urged mankind to "save God's Creation" before it is "too late." At the shrine of Loreto, he donned green vestments.

While abortion remains far and away the greatest sin and should remain the central pro-life effort, the environment is also an issue that needs to be brought into the tent -- involving as it does millions who die each year not just from climate shifts (which may or may not be attributable to pollution), but from industrial smoke, sullied water, and toxic contamination of food.

The most frequent victims of this: unborn children. We are now at a stage where virtually every pregnant woman has industrial chemicals in her umbilical cord or breast milk and more than 90 percent of children have chlorinated hydrocarbons (such as PCBs) in their tissues (as do adults). This is not something that God wants as part of our biology. Cancer now afflicts a quarter to a third of those in modern nations, and is far too common in the young -- too common to be mere happenstance. Miscarriages (as in "unborn") are often the first sign of a pollution problem.

That is one area for expansion in the pro-life movement. Another is cloning: this is rising as an evil comparable to abortion, especially if there is widespread destruction of human embryos to create stem cells or spare parts for humans. That's the embryonic stage -- unborn babies they want to create in labs. There is the cloning of human embryos, the mixing of human and animal genes to create hybrids, the alteration of human genes, and the engineering of "designer" babies (with eye color and other features chosen by the parents). They are also working at taking it a step further, to the full-scale creation of a cloned human adult, which would mark one of the most nefarious turns in all of human history (perhaps the greatest challenge to God as creator since Satan fell).

These issues too belong inside the pro-life tent, and indeed some pro-life organizations have taken up the causes. But as yet these are not galvanized pro-life issues and the degree of involvement needs to be ratcheted up -- with marching around genetic laboratories and embryo implantation clinics and chemical factories as there are now protests around abortion clinics.

The same is true for vaccinations. And here we come back, if in a hidden way, to the killing of the unborn.

Let this be our topic for the day: how, unbeknownst to many Catholics -- and even many pro-life Christians -- children are being inoculated with vaccines from cell lines that were derived from the tissue of babies aborted in the 1960s.

"In the United States, " notes Professor Jameson Taylor of Dallas, "ten different vaccines for chicken pox, hepatitis A, polio, rabies, and rubella are cultured on aborted tissue from two fetal cell lines known as WI-38 and MRC-5."

WI-38 is a three-in-one shot grown on this cell line is used for measles, mumps, and rubella (or "German measles"). The "WI" is an acronym for the Wistar Institute, an aggressive genetic research outfit. The culture was taken from an aborted baby girl who was killed in 1961 because the parents -- who were married and lived in Stockholm, Sweden -- simply did not want any more children.

The MRC-5 cell line was developed from lung tissue belonging to a 14-week fetus aborted in 1966 by a healthy 27-year-old woman for "psychiatric reasons." MRC stands for the Medical Research Council, an agency funded by British taxpayers.

Meanwhile, development of the rubella vaccine involved a strain called RA 27/3. R stands for "rubella, A for "abortus," and 27 for the number of aborted babies tested, Nazi-like, before a useable live virus was detected.

By contrast, points out Dr. Taylor, Japanese researchers obtained a live virus by simply swabbing the throat of an infected child.

There have been some pro-life organizations -- Human Life International, Children of God for Life -- who have protested.

But not nearly enough parents realize the truth about some common vaccinations and even if they do are often required to have their children inoculated with such cell lines because there is no alternative (or because they have been pressured by doctors). Few are those who recognize -- as they send their kids off to school -- that a terrible act has been perpetrated on them.

Most public and private schools -- including Catholic ones -- require immunizations for rubella and chicken pox -- and parents not only don't realize the origin of the vaccines, but don't know that courts have consistently affirmed their right to turn down such vaccinations for moral reasons.

Translation: we are allowed to refuse abortion-tainted vaccines -- no matter how a school or pediatrician makes it sound. In fact, at least some pediatricians don't themselves understand the origin of the vaccinations.

The vaccines manufactured without aborted babies, from animals or chick embryos, may in some case be slightly less effective, or slightly riskier (for those injected), but proponents argue that such risks are negligible and that it is more a matter of pharmaceutical companies and their bottom lines: Alternatives are more expensive to manufacture even if safe inoculations can be grown on animal cells for all but chicken pox, hepatitis A and rubella -- diseases mild enough for the acquisition of natural immunity.

"That's how they increase their profits," noted a Canadian physician, Dr. Rene Leiva of Ottawa, where the vaccines are similar to those in the U.S. "All the people who are for this say, 'These [tainted vaccines] were related to one or two abortions that happened in the 1960s.' If you want to be a literalist, then yes, they're correct. Nevertheless, my research has shown that it took at least eighty-something abortions to come up with the technique to be able to produce this vaccine [known as Pentacel and is administered to infants when they are two, four, six, and 18 months old. Four of its components -- the ones guarding against whooping cough, tetanus, meningitis, and diphtheria -- are grown through ethical means. But the fifth, polio, was grown using abortion-tainted cells. An ethical alternative called Pedicel, though approved for use, has been kept off the Canadian market].

Bishops in England and Wales have determined that parents have no obligation to refuse the vaccinations, but call use of aborted fetal tissue "a kind of evil which is widespread in biomedical research and which people rightly think they should combat when they can."

Since the tissue was removed after the aborted baby was dead, individuals involved in the vaccine production were not involved in the abortion, say the bishops, and neither are those who are injected with it.

The Vatican has stated that it is not "licit" to use vaccines from cells derived from aborted babies, but that they may be employed, for the health of living children, when there is no alternative. This discernment was formulated by the Pontifical Academy for Life and announced by its president, Bishop Elio Sgreccia. In the U.S., there is no alternative.

But is it really "licit"? The Vatican added that government must require an alternative. "The use of aborted fetal tissue is important to the pro-life movement and those parents who rightly refuse these vaccinations based on moral conscience," observed Yvonne Bontkowski of Children of God for Life in Illinois.

Indeed, it is time for us -- for pro-lifers, for Catholics in general, for all Christians -- to write legislators, to refuse such vaccines,  and to march around laboratories until, among other "pro-life" issues, this is finally recognized for a history that is hidden and sinister and calls out to God.

9/5/07

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