The Vatican’s new instruction on bioethical issues confirms that it’s acceptable in some circumstances for Catholics to use vaccines made with abortion-derived tissue.

Some Catholic pro-lifers have argued it’s never acceptable to use vaccines made with human cell lines derived from tissues obtained decades ago from aborted babies.

But as the Register reported several years ago in our coverage of the issue, moral theologians have concluded that use of such vaccines — when more ethical vaccines made without abortion-derived tissue are not available — is not prohibited in all cases.

Dignitas Personae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new instruction on bioethics, devotes an entire section to “The use of human ‘biological material’ of illicit origin.”

It stresses that all new research that involves the killing of early embryos constitutes abortion and therefore represents “a grave moral disorder.”

However, using vaccines created with cell lines obtained from tissues derived from long-ago abortions is a separate matter. Parents who allow such vaccinations for their children are not involved in the same kind of close cooperation with abortion as are researchers who kill embryos themselves or who use tissues derived from the recent killing of embryos.

“Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such ‘biological material,’” Dignitas Personae states. “Thus, for example, danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available.”

It’s worth restating the call made here for Catholics “to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available.”

What the Vatican is telling Catholic parents is that, in cases where there is no alternative to accepting vaccination of their children with abortion-derived vaccines, it’s not enough to hold their noses and then to try to forget about what happened afterward.

They need to contact drug companies, legislators and their medical plans to demand that they work to develop and promote abortion-free vaccines. And here’s a website where Catholics can get advice on how to fulfill this solemn responsibility:  Debi Vinnedge’s Children of God For Life website.

— Tom McFeely