Today, as I write this (12/8/20), England is the first to roll out the Pfizer vaccination for COVID-19, amid a great deal of fanfare.
The vaccine principle works—it is real, and has been able to prevent the spread of some serious diseases, and helped to save untold numbers of lives over the years. It is simply that an actual virus sample is collected, and it is altered in the lab to create a weakened strain. When that weakened strain is then introduced into the body of a healthy person, their natural immune system is able to defeat it, and is better able to fight off the real virus when they come in contact with it.
The problem is that in order to develop that weakened strain, there have to be cell cultures for it to grow in—the virus then attacks the cells, feeds off them, and multiplies. Several "cell lines" have been developed to do just that; each one comes from a different source, and those cells were made to multiply—interestingly, each cell line can last for decades. There are a variety of original sources: monkey embryo and kidney cells, chicken and rabbit embryos… as well as aborted babies. Biblically, that is the issue.
Human life is precious—it is holy, because we are made in the image of God, Gen 1:26,27. We are the pinnacle of creation; unlike any other creature—and we have intrinsic value from conception until death… and beyond. God knows us individually, even before birth, Ps 139:13-16. And the Bible doesn't distinguish between the baby in the womb, or outside of the womb, Lk 1:41,44; 2:12,16; the same Greek word is used for both John inside his mother, and for Jesus, perhaps near the age of two. Both are precious to God: again, human life is precious—and abortion kills an innocent baby.
With regard to vaccines, the origin of each cell line is not a secret; it is well known—for instance, the cell line known as MRC-5 was developed in 1966 from the lungs of a 14-week old baby boy, "removed for psychiatric reasons from a 27 year old woman with a genetically normal family history and no sign of neoplastic disease both at abortion and for at least three years afterward." (J.P. Jacobs et al., "Characteristics of a Human Diploid Cell Designated MRC-5," Nature 227, 1970, p168)
WI-38 was developed in 1968 from the lungs of a baby girl in the third month of pregnancy. "Both parents are known, and unfortunately for the story, they are married to each other, still alive and well, and living in Stockholm, presumably. The abortion was done because they felt they had too many children. There were no familial diseases in the history of either parent, and no history of cancer specifically in the families." ("Gamma Globulin Prophylaxis; Inactivated Rubella Virus; Production and Biological Control of Live Attenuated Rubella Virus Vaccines," American Journal of Diseases of Childhood 118, no. 2, 1969, p378)
PER C6 was developed in 1985; the developer said, "…I isolated retina [cells] from a fetus, from a healthy fetus as far as could be seen, of 18 weeks old. There was nothing special in the family history, or the pregnancy was completely normal up to the 18 weeks, [it was aborted] …simply because the woman wanted to get rid of the fetus." (Transcript of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hearing date 16 May 2001, p91)
HEK-293 was developed from the kidneys of a baby aborted in 1972. (All prior quotes from https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/abortion-opponents-protest-covid-19-vaccines-use-fetal-cells, last accessed 7/28/2020)
There are other fetal cell lines as well—and each from a baby, one that had ostensibly no abnormalities. Since this is research, you would want a "good specimen…" which means that these were babies that were simply murdered. While some, even Christians, make excuses for some abortions, none are possible for these.
If the government merely tested these vaccines on someone without first getting their consent, it would be all over the news—and those heading the experiments would be in serious trouble! But in this case, not only did the research subjects not give their consent, the research could not have taken place unless their lives were taken first.
The question is, are you willing to profit from another person's wickedness, and a baby's murder—even if it were to have occurred years before? Would you think to yourself, "as long as it benefits me, I am willing to ignore how I get the benefit?"
The good news is that babies don't have to be aborted to derive cell lines that can be used to develop vaccines! Man was created in the image of God, but all else was given into our hand as a stewardship for our use, Ps 8:6; Gen 1:26; and there are ethical versions of most vaccines that are developed from animal cells, e.g., Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B, Polio, Shingles, Small Pox, and Rabies. The CDC provides a list of all ingredient in a vaccine; you just have to look at the label, or the manufacturer's package insert, and request a vaccine that isn't developed from human cell lines.
And that brings us to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Three vaccines are slated to be distributed in the US: Astra Zeneca / University of Oxford (USA / UK); Moderna / National Institute of Health (USA); and Pfizer / BioNTech (USA / Germany). The processes they use have been well documented in scientific journals, and reported on by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-and-abortion-derived-cell-lines/, last accessed 12/10/2020).
Astra Zeneca's offering used the HEK-293 cell line THROUGHOUT the process: in design, development, and production, as well as using abortion-derived cells in lab tests. The other two, by Moderna and Pfizer, do not use these cell lines in the creation of their product; but THEY DO use the HEK-293 cell line in some confirmatory lab tests.
What are you going to do? Vaccinations are not sin in and of themselves; but there is a good deal wrong with using the body of a murdered baby to make one, regardless of the time-line. How is your choice today going to influence the choices of generations to come after you?
