Feedback archive → Feedback 2012
Vaccines and abortion?
Published: 24 March 2012 (GMT+10)
We regularly receive emails asking about the use of aborted fetuses in developing vaccines; Kevin M., Canada, wrote in requesting comments in more detail. Dr Jonathan Sarfati’s responses are interspersed.

A doctor performing a typhoid vaccination in Texas, 1943.
Dear Dr M.
Dear CMI, First off, I would like to say thank you for your all your good work; your website, the Creation magazine and the Journal of Creation are all extremely informative and useful and have been of great encouragement to me. Through 3 years of university majoring in biochemistry and 4 years of dental school, I faced a barrage of evolutionary teaching. Your resources have emboldened my faith.
We are happy that our work has been helpful.
I am responding to two articles on your website: 1. Vaccines and Genesis-Questions and Answers on Vaccinations and the Immune System and 2. Are vaccines biblical, safe or effective? The main point that I am addressing was brought up by someone by the name of Rachel in article #2 above where she writes: "And it is FACT that some vaccines are made using the medium of tissue cells of aborted fetuses!" to which the reply by Dr. Carl Wieland was:
“Abortion is a tragic evil, and the articles should have made clear that we don’t for a minute condone or support that, but oppose it in the strongest possible terms. This should be clear in general from Q&A: Human Life Abortion and Euthanasia. In fact, we would prefer it if you didn’t use such a medicalese term like ‘fetus’ for unborn baby, because this tends to perpetuate the notion that it is somehow less than a baby. That’s unless one would be likewise prepared to use the medicalese ‘gravida’ for the pregnant mother.”
And that was very reasonable. Whoever controls the language wins the debate, so we should not follow the pro-aborts with their selective medicalese which dehumanizes the unborn in the eyes of many laypeople. And the answer also made it clear that we oppose abortion, including to generate vaccine culture media.
In my opinion, the point posed by Rachel was not directly addressed by Dr Wieland. Indeed, it is a fact that many of the vaccines used today have been developed using aborted fetal cell lines (Certainly I do not normally use the word "fetal" however this is the name commonly used to refer to these cell lines derived from aborted babies). Two of the most common aborted fetal cell lines are MRC-5 which has been used to make the hepatitis A vaccine, the hepatitis A&B vaccine, the Polio combination vaccine, and others, and the WI-38 cell line which has been used to make the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine, and others.
OK, since this reply was made, I answered a pro-life friend who had asked a related question about the rabies vaccine being grown in human embryos. I replied:
I have my doubts about that. The rabies vaccine goes back to the creationist chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), who infected rabbits; then after they died, he dried out their nerve tissue to weaken the germ. He gave it to Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy bitten by a rabid dog. The boy never developed rabies. Rabies vaccine is still made that way sometimes.
Now it seems that most rabies is cultured on embryonic eggs—but chicken not humans. Another version uses fetal lung tissue culture from Rhesus monkeys. Note that viruses are not like bacteria, that can be cultured on nutrients; viruses are non-living biological machines that must hijack genuinely living cells to reproduce.
The one objectionable version of the vaccine is that cultured on cells derived from a male baby who was aborted in the UK in 1966. This is a cell line coming from continual reproduction of cells from that, not embryos per se. No new embryos are being generated for the purpose of culturing vaccines (this is immoral). The vaccine makers had nothing to do with the abortions.
Here is a Roman Catholic statement about the morality of using such vaccines.1 I.e. we should avoid and seek alternatives if possible, unless it is necessary to save our lives or those of children. After all, would we refuse a life-saving organ that was from a victim of a drunk driver for example who listed “Organ Donor” on the driver’s license, because he was killed in a sinful way?
Another paper from Christianity and Pharmacy says much the same.2
The Vatican has taken this issue so seriously that it wrote a letter on it, seen here (though I do not agree with the conclusion that using these vaccines is acceptable merely because there is no alternative): Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human foetuses, Pontifical Academy for Life, for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, 9 June 2005.
Must be the same as what I quoted. But notice the principle: it was not supporting killing more babies, but using the cell lines from a baby already killed decades ago. That deed was unfortunately done, and cannot be undone. There is also no evidence that it would lead to more abortions. The second paper I quote explains the "principle of double effect", which I also invoked in What about abortion to save the mother’s life?
Now it is clear that CMI is strongly pro-life, and it is also clear from your article "Stem cells and Genesis" that you oppose embryonic stem cell research due to its obvious connection with abortion.
Or rather, they both have the common connection to the beginning of life from conception (fertilization).
In light of the reality that many vaccines today are intricately linked with aborted children, how can CMI not oppose these vaccines?
As shown above, the link is to two aborted children from 40 years ago, as wrong as that was. But especially since there is no more abortion for the purpose of generating vaccines, using the relatively few vaccines from these babies does not entail supporting how they were generated.
Why should Christians be willing to compromise our ethical standards because the medical profession at large says we’d be foolish not to?
This is begging the question about whether there is a compromise. Not only is there that double effect principle above, but also the general biblical principle of a hierarchy of morals or graded absolutism: if two moral principles conflict, the greater principle exempts one from the obligation to the lesser one. (One thinks of the common example of someone in WWII-era Germany, or the countries it occupied, lying to the Nazis about the Jews he is hiding.)
Even if vaccines could save some lives, though the evidence for this is arguable at best,
I disagree, as would those who suffered horribly from rabies, smallpox and polio.3
how can we not think of Jesus’ words in Luke 9:24, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." (Also see Matt 16:25 and Mark 8:35).
Indeed, and that would apply to those who would commit murder, of born of unborn humans, to save one’s life. It would not apply to those who see no reason to add still more deaths to the atrocities of the two murdered babies from >40 years ago without any gain in return.
Thank you for your consideration of this most important subject.
Sincerely in Christ
Dr Kevin M.
In Christ
Dr Jonathan Sarfati, for Dr Carl Wieland at his request.
Related Articles
Further Reading
References and notes
- Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human foetuses, immunize.org, accessed 13 March 2012. Return to Text.
- J.D. Grabenstein, Moral considerations with certain viral vaccines, Christianity and Pharmacy 2(2):3–6, 1999, accessed 13 March 2012 from immunizationinfo.org. Return to Text.
- See also 9 anti-vaccination myths busted with science by Dr Rachael Dunlop, 12 November 2011 (off-site). Return to Text.
Readers’ comments
I also don’t want anyone to take what I said as medical advice (as I am in no way qualified).
My comments were more my own personal convictions; and as I’ve said, I think everyone should become informed for themselves and not rely on layman (such as myself) for their decisions.
Also, if you’re worried that people will see my comments and make the wrong decision, then I would have no problem at all with you taking down my comment. I also don’t want people to make the wrong decision based on what I’ve said.
Do creationists now have dollar signs where their consciences should be?
For shame.
To support the comments made in that article on both those issues:
Anyway, I hope these comments go some way to provide some thoughts about the issues you raised.
My comment is not intended as a final word on whether to use vaccines which came from babies who were aborted 40+ years ago, but rather as another point to consider in making that decision.
Also, it could be argued that the Bible is just reporting an event, not giving us a command to follow. It’s well known in the philosophy of ethics that we can’t go from an is to an ought. For example, Lot, described as “righteous” (2 Peter 2:7), in an exaggerated notion of hospitality to his (angelic) guests, offered up his own virgin daughters to be ravished by the first recorded Gay Pride parade in history. Here, I would point out, “Not everything recorded in the Bible is approved by the Bible.”
It’s different with the actions of Christ, because Christians are exhorted to be “imitators of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11) and “have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
I sincerely look forward to your visits to Southern California, as I will be attending the Long Beach homeschool conference specifically to see Dr. Jonathan Sarfati and the Costa Mesa conference to see Dr Wieland.
God Bless your ministry, and all who work it and read from it.
There have been various claims linking an increase in autism with vaccination in general, and with the preservative thiomersal (often called “thimerosal” in the USA, probably because of metathesis) in particular. However, the U.S. National Academy of Science’s (NAS) Institute of Medicine published a study in 2004 which summarized:
Another creationist scientist, Dr Jay Wile, has written a careful study, Vaccines DO NOT Cause Autism, 2009.
One wonders if instead of an increase in autism, there has been an increase in false diagnoses of autism (economist Dr Thomas Sowell, author of a book on late-talking children including his son, argues so in a 2008 column Autism Cures?).
And as we have pointed out, it’s always a cost-benefit analysis. None of these diseases is always mild. Rubella (German Measles) is well known for being very dangerous during pregnancy, resulting in spontaneous abortion about 20% of the time (so vaccinations are actually a very pro-life measure). Even chickenpox has dangers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
I am personally on the fence with vaccines. I do not believe in the “one size fits all” mentality that medical experts try to push on people. I personally believe that mass vaccinations are essentially like playing Russian roulette: somewhere down the road someone is going to get seriously hurt or worse.
Anyone who says differently either hasn’t looked into the issue, hasn’t been harmed by a vaccine, or doesn’t know anyone personally who has been affected by vaccines (a very close friend of mine when into a seizure immediately upon receiving her Hep B vaccinations and had to be rushed to the nearest hospital. By God’s grace, no serious damage was done, but she is now anti-vaccine).
On the other hand, I don’t think it is wise to go the other direction and write off all vaccines. I think it is wise to be able to take the “important” ones while avoiding the ones that don’t prevent anything deadly or life changing (I personally don’t get the flu shot because at worst, a flu lasts a week or so, while an adverse reaction to the shot could change my life for the worst). I think one could extend this to the vaccines that were cultured from the aborted babies too. If this offends anyone, and I certainly understand why it would, then just avoid those vaccines.
In the end, I think everyone is responsible for doing the research to the best of their ability and make an informed decision on the matter.
We should not forget that life in this fallen world is a continual tradeoff between risk and benefit. We do this every time we drive a car, for instance. The judgement of medical professionals recommending a particular vaccine is obviously that the risk of being harmed by that particular vaccine is less than the risk of being harmed by the disease. Therefore, if you know someone harmed by a vaccine, that is terrible, and sad, but if it is within the overall reported numbers, it is not something that would surprise the medical authorities concerned, nor should it cause them to change their advice so long as their numbers are accurate, i.e. that the risks of not doing something outweigh the risks of doing it.
The Bible talks a great deal about wisdom. The understandable emotional impact of a particular experience should not change the way one views the overall risk/benefit assessment; it would seem more rational to base it on large numbers. For example, I saw an (unvaccinated) child die a horrible, slow brain-eaten-up death over months from a complication of measles. If the risk of getting that from not vaccinating was 1 in 10 million, for example, and the risk of your child dying from the vaccine was say 1 in 5 million, it might make sense to refuse the vaccine, in spite of seeing this horrible outcome from not vaccinating. (That was a hypothetical, to show the equation can work both ways; but of course the people responsible for disease prevention are paid to calculate those risks for the rests of us, and there are serious professional consequences if they get it wrong).
Comments are automatically closed 14 days after publication.