IS BEING PRO-VACCINE INCOMPATIBLE WITH BEING PRO-LIFE? - #6

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 two days)

4 Renouncing the COVID vaccine is not an effective protest against continued abortion

Even if receiving the COVID vaccine does not render the recipient complicit in historic abortion, Piper and Brennan make the argument that renouncing or boycotting it is an effective and necessary protest against current abortion.

Brennan argues this most strongly, using 1 Cor. 10:27-30 to argue that receiving or refusing the vaccine is not a matter of individual conscience. He draws a parallel with meat sacrificed to idols but sold in the meat market, and to Paul’s command that a Christians should not eat meat at a meal with a person who points out to the believer that it has been sacrificed to idols. The most likely scenario is a private meal in the home of a pagan unbeliever who knows that their guest is a Christians who no longer participates in idol feasts at the temple for ethical reasons. Brennan believes that Christians should reject the vaccine on the grounds of the conscience of the secular world that has produced it.

However I am not convinced that the parallel works. The offer of a vaccine to the public at large is hardly the same as an intimate meal and the personal relationship between a guest and their host. I am unaware of anyone attending for a COVID vaccination who has been told or warned by staff administering it that "this vaccine has been produced using abortions", nor is the state that is providing this vaccine forcing this issue of conscience on believers.

More pertinently, the argument about being complicit above, means that the situation is not the same. The meat served at the meal in 1 Corinthians 10:26 had been sacrificed to an idol, and the host was a worshipper of such idols. In the case of the COVID vaccine the Christian might legitimately respond that the vaccine has not in fact been produced or developed from an abortion in any way that would either violate their own conscience, or that of the person providing it. A highly unlikely scenario – an individual making an issue of conscience for a believer over the development of the vaccine – which is itself based on weak arguments of complicity, is a shallow basis for demanding that Christians reject the vaccine. Again take the parallel of the appropriate Christian response to an unbelieving friend who points out that the iPad they are using was manufactured in China, or that the Bible they are reading was printed in China. Does that require the believer to renounce iPads and Chinese printed Bibles?

As I am not, therefore, persuaded by Brennan’s case from 1 Corinthians 10 that Christians are under a duty to renounce the vaccine for the sake of the conscience of the unbelieving world, I think it is then a matter of pragmatics, or better prudential judgment, as to whether the renunciation of the COVID vaccine would advance the pro-life cause.

Both Piper and Brennan believe that it would. Piper argues that it would be a costly sacrifice that would contribute to fighting for the sanctity of the unborn persons. For Brennan the current COVID crisis offers a unique "once in a lifetime" opportunity to send a strong message to the government and society that would declare "that we care more about ending this injustice than all the values that the culture around us would press us to adopt."

These are noble goals, but I do question whether such a stand would in fact advance the pro-life cause in society, or simply further erode any sympathy for the pro-life movement. If accepting the COVID vaccine is not in itself complicit with abortion, as I have argued, then I cannot see that it would be a sensible option to choose to boycott it to make a point that will almost certainly not be heard positively. The result of such a boycott would very likely be more deaths and a slower exit from lockdown for the whole of society. Given the small number of evangelical believers in the UK, and the fact that many of them do not share the same conviction that receiving the vaccine would be sinful, the impact would in any event be small. You can imagine the media coverage that would ensue. I doubt that such a protest would be regarded as "pro-life" by the watching world, but would likely be characterised as "pro-death" because it would leave more people susceptible to the virus.

We face a massive challenge if we are to reverse the current acceptance of abortion in the UK and replace it with a public and governmental commitment to the sanctity of life. The reality is that the vast majority of our population support the provision of abortion, and so there is a need to change millions of hearts and minds before there is any prospect of change. The attempts to restrict abortion in Poland have simply had the effect of speeding up the secularisation of that society, as was the case in Ireland. The recent legalisation of abortion in Argentina is a result of the fact that there are already an estimated 500,000 abortions a year. The pro-life case involves massive changes of public policy, not just restricting or outlawing abortion but providing the financial and emotional support needed for parents, and mothers in particular, including the willingness of the state on behalf of society to bear the additional costs of single-parenthood and of caring for disabled children. Without such a holistic approach the pro-life case is a non-starter in contemporary culture.

Evangelicals have focused too narrowly on legal restriction and too little on the wider societal change needed to remove the incentives to abort. The costly sacrifice that is needed to challenge abortion is more likely to be that of the willingness to pay higher taxes so as to support the care and raising of children, and the continued elimination of stigma against single-mothers who choose to keep their children. As an adopted baby who was born to a 15 year old mother in 1968 I have skin in this game. Ultimately the evil of abortion is unlikely to be ended unless and until the Lord mercifully sends revival and a very much larger percentage of the population hold to a biblical view of the value of human life created in the image of God. Only when, for example, Psalms 51 and 139 are widely believed will abortion be unthinkable. Pursuing evangelism and church growth is the most effective long-term pro-life strategy.

I agree therefore with Piper and Brennan that we need to undertake "proactive engagement … against the taking of innocent human life in the womb and the use of those children for research and experimentation". I don’t however agree with their arguments that the way we must do this is by renouncing the use of the COVID vaccines. Like numerous medical advances the vaccines offer hope to mitigate the impact of this virus and enable a return to more normal life. I don’t think our society will be persuaded by our arguments if we choose to renounce them, but more fundamentally as much as I respect these Christian brothers and others who agree with them, I don’t think there is a solid biblical case that to accept vaccinations would be sinful.

In the past fortnight both my mother (83 and in a care home that has been affected by COVID) and my mother-in-law (90 and living alone) have been vaccinated, making the prospect of visiting more likely. I am thankful for this provision. For the sake of my family and children I look forward to being protected from COVID myself in due course.

I am pro-life but in this situation also pro-vaccine. I don’t think those convictions are incompatible.