Vaccines and Abortion

Although many people know me as the computer repair guy, that is just one of my jobs. About two years ago I took on another task: fatherhood.

Crystal and I did the normal things parents do in caring for a child, including allowing him to be vaccinated at the appropriate times. One day we heard a rumor that the chickenpox vaccination was developed with tissue from an aborted baby. Not one to believe every conspiracy theory that comes along, I assumed it wasn’t true.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Some research on the Internet and consulting with a physician made the truth clear: several vaccines, including two that had already been administered to our child, were developed using fetal tissue from deliberately aborted babies. Don’t take my word for it; do some reading and find out for yourself.

Many people like myself object on moral grounds to embryonic stem cell research, something that we have heard much about recently. Yet many of us have allowed our children to be injected with vaccines developed using fetal tissue from aborted babies. All FDA-approved Rubella vaccines, for example, were developed this way.

Many say these vaccines are not a moral problem. In a New York Times editorial published on August 12, 2001, George W. Bush stated the following:

The only licensed live chickenpox vaccine used in the United States was developed, in part, from cells derived from research involving human embryos. Researchers first grew the virus in embryonic lung cells, which were later cloned and grown in two previously existing cell lines. Many ethical and religious leaders agree that even if the history of this vaccine raises ethical questions, its current use does not”

Although I do not to agree with the “religious leaders” he speaks of, I am not writing to give medical or moral advice. I am merely exposing facts that should be considered. The good news is that there are alternatives to several of the “abortion-tainted” vaccines.

The following website is not written from a pro-life perspective, and actually defends the abortion-tainted Rubella vaccine by saying it prevents abortions. Yet it still gives the truth about the origin of the vaccine it tries to defend.  What it does not tell you is that in several countries, including Japan, an alternative Rubella vaccine is used that does not contain the tainted cell lines.
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccine_components_detail.cfv?id=32

The following website includes a wealth of in-depth information, including a chart of tainted and untainted vaccines.  In addition, it contains a number of links where the skeptical can find additional verification.
http://www.cogforlife.org

There is a great deal of information on this topic published on the Internet by both pro-life and pro-choice sources.  While these sources disagree on what is morally right and wrong, they agree that abortion was involved in the development of several vaccines we use today.