The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it will withhold $200 million in federal funds from California because the state refuses to comply with federal laws prohibiting discrimination against health care funding sources that decline to pay for abortion. California requires all insurance policies to include coverage for abortion on demand without any restrictions, on the premise that all abortions are “medically necessary.” This extremist mandate violates conscience protections for companies and organizations that provide health insurance coverage. Such protections have been included in the federal appropriations bill every year since 2005.
Since the California abortion mandate was created in 2014, Life Legal has worked with churches and individuals trying to recover their right not to pay for abortion with their insurance premiums. Federal law is clear that states cannot force employers to be complicit in the killing of innocent children.
“This action by HHS tells California that it is not exempt from federal law, particularly when it takes federal money,” said Life Legal’s Chief Legal Officer Catherine Short. “The state should not be playing political games with health care law.”
HHS will continue to strip California of $200 million in federal funding per quarter until it complies with the law.
Mary: not quite, as the Pfizer vaccine was approved thanks to an aborted baby.
ReplyDeleteLet me say at the outset, that I have no intention of taking the vaccine. There are a lot of other questions in addition to its connection to abortion. Having said that, many Catholic bioethicists are saying the Pfizer and several other vaccines in development are morally permissible to take.
ReplyDeleteThe Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were developed and produced without using cell lines from aborted babies. However, the some of the lab tests on animals did use cell lines from abortions. I'm presuming those lines are generations from the original stem lines and not from recent cannibalizing of aborted babies. Frankly, I don't really understand it. Here are several articles discussing the matter.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pfizer-covid-vaccine-not-created-with-fetal-cells/
https://aleteia.org/2020/11/18/both-moderna-and-pfizers-coronavirus-vaccines-made-without-fetal-cells/
Catholic bio-ethicists are saying the vaccine's involvement with abortion is remote and taking the vaccine is ethical. Here's a bit from another article (https://www.arkansas-catholic.org/news/article/6772/Bishops-Pfizer-and-Moderna-vaccines-morally-acceptable):
"Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine involved the use of cell lines that originated in fetal tissue taken from the body of an aborted baby at any level of design, development or production," the two prelates said. "They are not completely free from any connection to abortion, however, as both Pfizer and Moderna made use of a tainted cell line for one of the confirmatory lab tests of their products.
"There is thus a connection, but it is relatively remote," they continued. "Some are asserting that if a vaccine is connected in any way with tainted cell lines, then it is immoral to be vaccinated with them. This is an inaccurate portrayal of Catholic moral teaching."
Bishop Rhoades and Archbishop Naumann cited three Vatican documents that "treat the question of tainted vaccines": the 2005 study by the Pontifical Academy for Life, "Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived From Aborted Human Fetuses"; paragraphs nos. 34-35 in the 2008 "Instruction on Certain Bioethical Questions" ("Dignitatis Personae") by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and the 2017 "Note on Italian Vaccine Issue," by the Pontifical Academy for Life.
"These documents all point to the immorality of using tissue taken from an aborted child for creating cell lines," they explained. "They also make distinctions in terms of the moral responsibility of the various actors involved, from those involved in designing and producing a vaccine to those receiving the vaccine.
"Most importantly," they added, "they all make it clear that, at the level of the recipient, it is morally permissible to accept vaccination when there are no alternatives and there is a serious risk to health."
In a Nov. 21 statement, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, Mercy Sister Mary Haddad said CHA ethicists, "in collaboration with other Catholic bioethicists," used the guidelines released by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005 and 2017 on the origin of vaccines and "find nothing morally prohibitive with the vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech (Pfizer's German partner) and Moderna."