IS BEING PRO-VACCINE INCOMPATIBLE WITH BEING PRO-LIFE? - #5

A previous session set out views that regard it as a matter of Christian duty to refuse the vaccine, and by implication as a sin to accept the vaccine.  

Here are my responses to their arguments: (continued from the previous day)

3 Receiving the COVID vaccine does not mean you are complicit in abortion

Both Piper and Brennan argue that accepting the COVID vaccine renders an individual complicit in either the historic abortion from which the foetal cell line was developed or in continued contemporary abortion by failing to take the stand of renunciation.

In response to this others would argue, and I would be more persuaded by their arguments, that accepting the vaccine does not render an individual complicit. No new abortion was performed or utilised to develop the vaccine. The developers of the vaccine did not actively choose to "do evil so that good may come" but rather utilised a long existing cell-line that has been used in medical research for almost half a century.

The issue is ultimately one of whether as individuals we are complicit in taking advantage of benefits that derive from past acts of sin, even if the past sin was not committed to achieve the immediate current benefit. This is a daily dilemma that is a result of living in a fallen world. Many of the good things we enjoy at an individual level are an indirect result of unethical and sinful behaviour in the past. We generally take advantage of them without a second thought.

Historical moral purism is an impossibility. This is true of many medical and scientific advances which had their origins in warfare or appalling human rights abuse. At the end of the Second World War the victorious allies took advantage of the data obtained by Nazi and Japanese experiments on their prisoners. The researchers in the notorious Japanese Unit 731 were given immunity from prosecution for war crimes by the Americans in return for the data they had gathered. In the past, medical research, including the testing of vaccines, was conducted unethically on prisoners and the poor.

This is not to justify such wicked actions, but rather to make the point that it becomes impossible in a fallen world to be insulated from all the benefits that might derive from evil that has been done in the past. There is a difference between the direct benefit of doing evil and the indirect results of evil having been done. The Bible recognises this dilemma in the very fact that God is able to bring good results that benefit his world or his people from wicked actions. The wickedness of the past action does not negate the good that he in his sovereign providence is able to bring from it, nor require his people to renounce the benefit for themselves.

The complicity of individuals with the evil done by others is therefore complex rather than simple. Are those who buy goods manufactured in China, like the iPad I am now using, complicit in the appalling use of abortion in China, or the oppression of the Uyghur people? Does the fact that a Bible publisher print their bibles in China make them complicit in the repression of the church in China? Does it mean that I am complicit by reading such a Bible in my personal devotions?

It is important that we debate such issues, and seek to understand what Scripture says, but we need to be extremely cautious before binding the consciences of others if Scripture is not absolutely clear. The implication of arguing that those who receive the COVID vaccine are complicit with abortion is presumably that anyone who receives the vaccine ought to be subject to church discipline for their sin and lack of repentance. The same would be true for those who have had their children vaccinated with MMR (as I have). It is not a conclusion that I would be willing to draw or support.