In my previous article I wrote about my experience of contracting a pernicious case of pneumonia caused by the Covid virus, and the pressure that was put on me during my two-week stay in the hospital to get vaccinated. In addition to citing the evidence that the natural immunity I had was now superior to any of the vaccines, I took the time to cordially discuss with the hospital staff the three reasons why I was refusing to get the vaccine- the lack of scientific and moral credibility among vax proponents, the terrible track record of three of the major vaccine producers who have repeatedly lied about the safety of their products, and because of personal religious convictions.
I gave some explanations for the first two reasons in last week’s article, but deliberately left the reasons for my religious objections vague, because I wanted to give a more thorough explanation at a later time. With that said, the primary reason I am rejecting the Covid vaccines is that, as a practicing Catholic who tries hard to live out the Church’s pro-life teachings, I do not wish to use or support a product that so blatantly violates those teachings. The Covid vaccines (as well as many other vaccines) are developed and tested using cell lines that are obtained from electively aborted fetuses. And as we shall see, it is done in a manner that I will hope will cause people to question how medical research is done in this country, even if one still chooses to get vaccinated.
A Matter of Degrees of Separation
As a today, the Church has made no formal Magisterial teaching on the morality of taking the various Covid vaccines, but recently the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that in general, in the case of a virulent pandemic, getting vaccinated can be seen as “an act of charity towards our neighbor.” However, they go on to state that no one should be forced or coerced to get the vaccine and that the choice to get the jab is ultimately a matter one’s fully informed conscience. The only caveat is that those who choose not to get vaccinated should take all prudent precautions to protect others from infection, and that those who choose to get vaccinated should at least express their sense of duress and voice their opposition to the use of aborted fetal cells to produce the vaccine.
The reasoning behind allowing someone in good conscience to receive the Covid vaccines is that, according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the abortions that provided the cell lines that were used to develop these vaccines happened decades ago. Thus it is asserted that since the cell lines are now “immortal” (i.e. they can be grown and multiplied over and over again), there is a sufficient degree of separation from the original abortion so that getting the vaccine would only constitute "remote passive material cooperation” with a gravely immoral act.
While this may seem to be an overly-technical or even (to non-Catholics at the very least) a specious moral pass to get around rigid church doctrines, it is a de facto acknowledgement and a reasoned attempt to deal with of the sort of moral compromises that all of us are faced with and accept in a fallen world. However, when it comes to the use of aborted fetal cell tissue in the production of vaccines, and in particular the Covid-19 ones, there is one key flaw in the CDF’s assertion that getting the jab would only amount to a “remote passive material cooperation” – there is nothing “remote” about the Covid vaccines’ connection with abortion.
A Different Kind of Human Trafficking
When David Daleiden at the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released their undercover videos back in 2015, Americans were able to see first hand the ghoulish underbelly of the abortion industry. In both graphic imaginary and language, Planned Parenthood officials were seen discussing and negotiating the lucrative traffic in the pre-born body parts of infants for use in medical research and experiments. The revelation of this hidden form of human trafficking did not make it go away, but instead was simply ignored by the legacy media in the hopes that the public would eventually forget about it- which for the most part they did. However, forgotten about or not, there is both anecdotal and well documented evidence that the notion that the fetal cells used to develop the Covid vaccines came from some long-ago abortion is simply not true.
According to author and former vaccine researcher Pamela Acker, when it comes to cell lines, the term “immortal” is a misnomer. You can only grow and multiply them for so long before they lose their efficacy and new ones must be created from scratch. This means that, as was made abundantly clear by Daleiden and the CMP, the medical-industrial complex requires an ongoing supply of viable fetal tissue in order to operate. What is not so well-known is, as Ackerman reveals, that, “just as though you can’t transplant an organ from a dead person into a living one, you can’t obtain viable cell lines from a dead cell donor.”
What this means is that in order to get fetal cells or tissue that are of any use, specific procedures must be used so that the desired parts or organs can be harvested intact and still functioning. This involves essentially delivering the infant or at least the main body or skull (without anesthesia because that ruins the tissue samples) so that technicians can rapidly dissect the newly born infant while it is still alive. This grisly reality was once again confirmed by Deiden who recently reported that the University of Pittsburg was harvesting “babies’ kidneys from their bodies while their hearts were still beating” so that there was as little deterioration of the samples as possible.
Re-Imagining the Value of One Life
It is a sad fact that almost half a century after Roe vs. Wade, we have become accustomed to the euphemistic language used to dehumanized the pre-born child in the womb- such as referring to the fetus a “clump of cells” (that somehow produces formed and working organs). Likewise, most people will employ a similar set of mental gymnastics to ignore or distance themselves from the grisly reality behind procuring the cells or tissue used to test and develop the Covid vaccines. Thus for many people, because these abortions and subsequent organ harvesting takes place “out of sight” and “out of mind”, it is easier for them to ignore the issue and decry the pro-life stance on refusing the jab as foolish, irrational or even dangerous.
John Zmirak over at The Stream once tried to explain this pro-life stance by posing a curious question: what if after George Floyd died, his organs were sold to scientists who cloned the cells and then sold to pharmaceutical companies who used them to test life-saving vaccines? He then asks the reader if they would take that vaccine, knowing that it came from Floyd. Well, I will respectfully one-up Mr. Zmirak, and posit a scenario where a drug was developed that would cure AIDS or cancer, by using cell lines grown from young black men, and especially those that died violently (perhaps it was found that having cortisol flooding their system improved the samples).
Thus, every time the police encountered a young black male engaged in a crime, they had it in the back of their minds that even if they aggravate the suspect or escalate the situation and end up using deadly force, at least there would be a silver lining to the death. So that every time a young black man was shot, his organs could be used to create a drug that would give a new lease on life to someone else. It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the term “Black Lives Matter” (at least from say Pfizer’s point of view). Now ask yourself, would you take that drug? If you are repulsed by this thought experiment, then you are beginning to understand the reasoning behind my and other people’s religious objection to getting the vaccine.
The Voracious Machine that Keeps All This Running
Recently this site ran an article called “The Visage of the Machine” which referenced a scene in the 1927 silent film Metropolis where a massive underground machine that kept a bustling city running, explodes and kills some workers. The “visage” of the machine then turns into a demonic grimace as the bodies of the dead workers are thrown into the machine as if into a fiery furnace, as the screen flashes a sign (it’s a silent film after all) that says, “Moloch.” The symbolism of the scene is meant to convey that the machine (which is out of sight and out of mind) that keeps their modern city humming along, runs on the lives of the workers who are sometimes killed operating it- much like the child sacrifices that were once offered to the ancient god Moloch.
This imagery is a salient example of the medical-industrial complex and just about every other modern process that runs our first-world way of life. The complex is a systematic and efficient well-oiled machine that produces life-saving drugs, vaccines, and procedures, but it does so (literally and metaphorically) on the viscera of nascent human beings. Thus for those who love to prattle on about “oppressed” or “marginalizes” peoples, this is far worse because we are talking about people that are being turned into commodities. Human beings that are electively killed and their bodies are used to create still more human life which is then experimented on until it is time to dispose of it.
And herein lies what is behind the religious objection I have to getting the jab. Aside from the trafficking and destruction of human beings (who still are created imago dei) in the development of these vaccines, from a spiritual point of view these vaccines are haunted. Just like an old X-Files episode entitled “The Ghost in the Machine” about a self-aware computer that kills those trying to shut it down, there is a “ghost” in the vaccines. It is inhabited by the same demonic entity (Moloch) that demanded child sacrifice in ancient times, and the same one that inspired the experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele and the Nazis and Shiro Ishii and Japan’s infamous Unit 731. It is the same one that inhabited Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” and the one behind the Mengele-maniacal AIDS drug research done on orphans run by Dr. Anthony Faucci (to say nothing of the experiments he oversaw on beagles and monkeys).
In short, when it comes to our current zeitgeist, the geist (spirit) of our times is an ancient and evil one that inhabits the “Machine” which powers the medical-industrial complex, and keeps the culture of death running at or near peak efficiency. It is all around us, and none of us can adequately detach or distance ourselves from it in any meaningful way. Perhaps, it is time for us to ask ourselves, who exactly is in control of this machine?
Drawing at Least One Line
This is why I have made the decision to not get the vaccine, even if it otracizes me or in the long run endangers my health, and maybe even leads to my death. After all, most of us reach a point in our lives where we make a decision to draw a line in the sand about something we feel passionate about, some line, any line where we decide to “hold the line.” And it is a choice that I realize not everyone will make or perhaps cannot make for a whole host of reasons, as everyone’s lives and the situations they are in are all different. Again, we have the freedom to follow our informed consciences on this one.
And for those who are already in full scoffing mode and currently making a mental list of all of the inconsistencies or hypocrisies such a stance would entail, consider this. First of all, try to contain your egotistical exuberance in thinking that you are the first person to notice that it is human nature to take such positions (inconsistencies and all). As I mentioned above, the machine is a ubiquitous reality in our modern life, so the number of people who can claim to be totally free of it are far and few between. But just because taking a certain stance won’t solve everything or ensure a clean break from the Machine all at once, does not mean that such stands are never worth taking. Also, if these kind of inconsistencies didn’t exist in the ones who tend to complain about them the loudest, then perhaps it would be worth addressing them in greater detail, but since they do...
Furthermore, if taking such a stance is seen as irrational or foolish, then consider how most of us know plenty of people who make far more moronic stands on far less trivial issues such as people who won’t eat Dominos Pizza because the original founder is pro-life or at Chic-Fil-A because of their stance on traditional marriage. To say nothing of the ethical/political stances taken by modern woke slacktivists about GMO foods, decrying capitalism on their smartphones, or threatening to take their has-been hits off of Spotify because they can’t control the conversation.
As for those bewailing my decision as dangerous, one that will put the lives of others at risk, well if this querulous rabble really cared about the individual lives of people, as opposed to speaking about them in the abstract or in accordance to some woke ideology, then perhaps I would be more moved. Nevertheless, like it or not, we live in a culture of liberty and freedom, and freedom demands responsibility, and responsibility demands a level of discipline to handle your own affairs first and then move out to those around you. But if you are really worried that the unvaxed will be a danger to the vaxed (I mean if you really have so little faith in the vaccines), well perhaps you can lobby congress to mandate that the unvaxed wear large red badges shaped like a virus so the vaxed can identify and distance themselves from them. There is a historical precedent for such a solution and you’ll be in good company.
But if the issue really is over the number of deaths that could result from being unvaxed, let's try to keep some perspective. In terms of sheer numbers, and assuming we can get the “with Covid vs. from Covid” statistics correct, the number of lives lost since this pandemic began (or those that may be lost in the future), will always pale in comparison to the tens of millions of human lives snuffed out from abortion and those artificially created in order to be tested on and then destroyed. Again, we are talking about mass producing human beings, like some livestock, to grease the gears of the Moloch-machine that gives us the quality of life we have.
Holding the Line Now For a Better Future
For those who reject or want to scoff at my choice, fair enough, knock yourself out- for in the end I am not acccountable to you or your feelings. But at least you know where the divide is and why. As for those who choose to reject the Machine and its haunted vaccine, this why it matters that we do our best to draw a line, some line, any line, and then pray for the grace to stick to it. For while it may take another generation or so, at some point we have to start the process of dismantling the Machine that runs the culture of death.
The results won’t be perfect or pleasant at first, but for those who are willing to make the choice, refuse to get the jab and insist on using or recommending other health care procedures and therapeutics that have been proven effective in maintaining health without feeding the Machine. And if holding fast to this stance will not encourage the medical-industrial complex to change their ways, then we must endeavor to raise our kids to also “hold the line” so that in time they will will be the ones to make that change. After all we’re not the ones handing them over to the Machine, so we’ll be the ones with descendants.
Photo Credit- ligtbuzz.freeminddaily.com