Ethics and the Covid-19 vaccines
Amidst the suffering and fear caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, we have been reading some good news about vaccines being developed and approved that seem to be highly effective in combating the virus. They have been approved for emergency use in some countries already and may be approved very soon in the U.S. It looks quite possible that they will be available to some of the public before Christmas. There are still many ethical questions that arise about the vaccines (can the government require citizens to take them? Who should get access to them first? What about privacy? and so on). But perhaps the most important ethical question is, Is it morally permissible for Catholics to receive them? The question arises because historically some vaccines have been produced from cell lines derived from children killed by abortion, and there is a serious question about whether, by taking such a vaccine, one would be cooperating with a grave moral evil. The...