We face decisions every day of our lives, but we sometimes don't consider the ethics of those decisions. It is so easy in the pace and clutter of our lives to just blow past decisions that may require deeper ethical thinking. This chart, prepared by the Charlotte Lozier Institute https://lozierinstitute.org/ summarizes several COVID-19 vaccines in terms of whether the development / production of those vaccines and the lab testing of those vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines. The challenge that this chart presents is that it makes clear which vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines in the research and production of COVID-19 vaccines. In the rush to get everyone vaccinated, here's a matter that's been overlooked by government officials and the mainstream media. I want to relate a story of how the ethical aspects of the COVID-19 vaccine were discussed on a radio show and what I as a Christian learned from that discussion.
On Sunday, January 31, 2021, I was listening to a weekly program on WHAM (1180 AM) where three very experienced Rochester, NY attorneys answer questions from callers on various legal topics. On this particular Sunday morning, the hosts were totally caught off guard by two callers who had questions on the ethical issues surrounding the use of abortion-derived cell lines in the COVID-19 vaccines. The two women who called, were clearly devoted Roman Catholics who had read some publications from the church that claimed that all the vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines in either the research or production of the vaccine. As the chart above shows, the Roman Catholic church publication squared pretty closely with the Charlotte Lozier Institute data. The hosts were totally unprepared to respond to these women with facts, and showed a lack of sensitivity to the ethical issues the women were struggling with. One of the attorneys posed this question to the caller, "If you were a fetus and were told your fetal tissue could be used to help others wouldn't you agree to it?" The woman was stunned by the question and would not answer it. I could tell that she considers the fetus a person, not a commodity. It was evident how the attorney would have answered the question. The attorney's question underscores an ethical viewpoint held by many in post-modern America.
It's clear that the two women callers expressed a Christian world view ethic, and the attorney expressd an atheistic and materialistic world view ethic. To the attorney the fetus by itself has no inherent worth and little value unless it can be used as a commodity to conduct research or to develop a vaccine that will help other people to live better lives. This atheistic and materialistic world view seems to me similar to that of southern white slave-owners towards blacks in pre-Civil War 19th century America. Back then the black slaves were also a commodity used to benefit the white slave owners of the southern states by providing low cost labor for their economic benefit. I also noticed that the devote Catholic women were unprepared to respond to the atheistic, materialistic view promoted by the attorney. It was like they were talking past each other.
I learned several principles from this exchange.
- Everyone has a world view and thus everyone is ethically motivated by some world view perspective.
- For Christians our world view is deepened through "Christian Formation" or sanctification, a growth process whereby through our faith disciplines and experiences grow to walk closely to Jesus and bring every thought captive to Christ.
- We need to be able to live and speak our world view with grace and compassion to those around us.
- We need to understand the various world views that are present in our day, and be able to gently question our relatives, friends and neighbors in ways that will help them understand both their own and our world views.
