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Is Vaccination Complicit with Abortion?

Perhaps unknown to many readers of The Annals is a debate in the pro-life community having to do with the cell cultures used in the manufacturing of several commonly used vaccines (e.g., measles, mumps, and rubella; hepatitis A; hepatitis B; varicella). These cell cultures originated from tissue obtained by abortions done approximately 4 decades ago. I first became aware of the issue more than 6 years ago when I was asked by an attorney to counsel a US Army sergeant who was facing court-martial for his refusal to take a vaccination required for deployment. The sergeant had been told that aborted embryos were used to manufacture the vaccine. He had chosen to disobey the order to be vaccinated rather than submit to what he considered an act complicit with abortion. My research led to the discovery that the sergeant was not the only person who shared this conviction. The issue is still being debated in certain religious circles and among certain ethicists, but there remains little written in the healthcare literature. Every month or two, I am asked for my opinion on this issue by a patient or colleague. While I share my opinion here to help inform my healthcare colleagues, this is certain not to be the final word. Passions run deep. As it turned out, the sergeant’s information was not exactly true. Aborted embryos are not used in the manufacturing of vaccines — at least not in an ongoing sense. However, there is little debate about the fact that 2 particular cell cultures used for vaccine production (MRC-5, WI38) were derived from abortions performed years ago. (The WI-38 cell culture is reported to have been derived from an abortion done in 1962.) With this link to abortion, for those of us who consider most abortions to be morally unacceptable, the question of using vaccines poses a real dilemma. This is hardly a trivial debate. Whether or not we in healthcare have personal concerns about the origins of these cell cultures, we must regard the concerns of those patients who do. Moreover, within reasonable boundaries, we have an obligation to allow patients, and parents of patients, the autonomy to make informed decisions based on their understanding of what is known, filtered through their convictions. But while we most often defer to this autonomy, this dilemma regarding vaccination is made more difficult by its implications on public safety. Should our concern for the common good (immunization) trump individual autonomy? Should we have mandatory vaccination of school children and Army personnel against their convictions? Back to the original question: Is it reasonable to conclude that accepting a vaccine manufactured using cells cultured from embryonic tissue obtained from an abortion done many years ago makes you complicit with that abortion — or any abortion? Here is a brief summary of arguments I have heard claiming that there is moral complicity: the end (benefits of vaccination) does not justify the means (abortion); never do evil that good might result; accepting the vaccination is cooperation with the original moral act;