Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part F: Our Obligations

 

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JMJ

 

Many have protested their belief that their 'rights' have been trodden upon by the leaders of our governments.

 

What few speak about are our obligations as a Catholic and member of civil society.

 

 Our first obligation is to protect our health.  This is a serious obligation and guards against intemperance in our mortal life.  In the case of a disease, we need to weigh the risks to our personal health as discussed earlier in this series.

What many seem to have selfishly forgot in their desire to protect their 'rights' is the right that others have, namely our obligation to the common-good. The extent that people will go to explain away the common-good is saddening.  I have already discussed the general risks to society and have been saddened by those media reports where Catholic celebrities speak out, trying to cast aside hundreds of years of the development of moral theology.

I am afraid that it is a testimony to the liberalism that permeates western society when people complain loudly about wearing a mask in public (which has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the transmission) and being vaccinated.  

 

We have an obligation to first protect our health and that of the common-good of our society.

But our obligation does not stop there. As Catholics there is much more ...

First, we have an obligation to promote untainted vaccines. Because of the social circumstances, it is not viable to simply demand the banning of tainted vaccines. There are a number of vaccines that are either untainted or only indirectly tainted by the use of morally tainted cell lines during testing. 

We need to promote their use to make them more commercially attractive than the morally tainted options.

This means that we are obliged to: 

• Discuss with care-giver options for vaccination.
• If available select the option that presents the least degree of taint and therefore the most remote cooperation in the evil of murder.

In addition, there are emerging untainted production technologies that hold the promise of a competitive advantage over the tainted methods. We need to lobby the Government to support the research and development of these technologies. 

Finally, we need to put our money where our mouth is by contributing financially to the private research and development of these technologies.

In short we can't just stand our virtual soap boxes ranting at the government to stop using morally tainted vaccines, we need to also tell them what TO do and make the sacrifices necessary to make it stick.

P^3

Series Links

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part A: Guiding Principles

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part B: Situation

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part C: Moral Issues

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part D: Vaccine Safety and Efficacy

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part E: Vaccines In Canada

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part F: Our Obligations

Making Moral Vaccine Decisions - Part G: Conclusion and Resources