For a long time, I have been meaning to put together some thoughts about the COVID vaccines and to share them with you.  Recently, our Bishop has written to all Catholics in the Diocese urging them to take the vaccine.  What I share here is my own personal and very limited reflection.  Please, form your own conscience about what is best for you, your family, and our society, and act accordingly.     

I want to make explicit some of my background conclusions that influence the way I think about the vaccine. 

(1) Public health officials, government leaders, the media, and Church leaders have made serious mistakes in imposing COVID mitigation measures without weighing the full and long-term cost of those measures.  I find the focused approach of The Great Barrington Declaration https://gbdeclaration.org/ to be superior to the approach that, for lack of a better term, I will call “the mainstream establishment” approach.   I think comparing COVID policies and overall flourishing between California and Florida is a real-world vindication of the focused approach. 

(2) The stifling of dissenting voices makes me somewhat skeptical of the mainstream establishment.  An important example of this regarding Dr. Scott Atlas can be found here:  https://stanfordreview.org/scott-atlas-the-last-word. 

(3) We have been given advice from authorities that is inconsistent and conflicts with earlier advice given by the same authorities. 

(4) The lack of credibility of the mainstream establishment has fostered a climate of conspiracy theories which proliferate in social media and alternative news sources.  Most conspiracy theories lack solid evidence and do not stand up to scrutiny.  I try to distinguish between credible dissenting voices, important unanswered questions, and unfounded conspiracy theories.    

Is it Morally Acceptable to Take the Vaccine?

There has been a lot of concern expressed by leaders in the Catholic pro-life movement that the vaccines have some connection with a cell line that was derived from the remains of an aborted child decades ago.  You can find a summary of this debate here:  https://www.ncregister.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-ethics-sorting-out-the-statements

I do not believe that taking the vaccine is sinful participation in abortion.  This is the judgment of the vast majority of bishops in the world and is a matter that is firmly within their teaching competence.  Many Catholic moralists have analyzed this as an example of remote material cooperation with evil, meaning that the cooperator does not share the evil intention and cooperates in a manner that is not essential to the evil act.  In this approach, the cooperation can be justified by sufficient reasons. 

A better way to think about this is not as cooperation but as benefiting from a past evil act.  In some cases, this would be wrong, such as if your roommate steals a TV and you watch it.   I think a closer analogy would be the morality of donating a murder victim’s organs to save the life of another.  Most of us would see the act of the next of kin to make the decision for the organ donation, the act of the doctor transplanting the organ, and the receiving of the organ by the person in need as a great good which is contrary in every way to the evil of the murder. 

Some say that accepting the vaccine would encourage future abortions for research purposes.  Of course we should fight against abortion in every circumstance and for whatever reason, but if researchers are using a cell line from an abortion that occurred decades ago (and not more recently), it does not seem that this is an ongoing issue, or if it was, that refusing the vaccine is the best way to address it. 

Is it Morally Obligatory to Take the Vaccine?

When Church leaders try to answer this question, they operate outside their area of competence.  It requires the making of a heavily fact-specific cost/benefit analysis for the individual and for society based on medical and public health data.  Church leaders rely on what they are told by authorities in these fields.  How much deference should these authorities be given?   

As a layperson (when it comes to science), I am impressed with the numbers that have been reported of upwards of 95% efficacy in preventing severe cases of COVID.  The percentage of serious adverse side effects is very low.  Although I am somewhat skeptical of the mainstream establishment, I have not found credible dissenting voices that contradict the vaccine research statistics, and so I accept them as accurate. 

But I have yet to find answers to certain important questions.  What are the long-term risks of the vaccines?  Experts cannot answer this question because the vaccine is so new.  Why are people who are vaccinated still required to wear masks and distance?  I’ve read that this is because it is unknown to what extent those who are vaccinated might still spread the virus.  How long does vaccine protection last?  How does vaccine protection compare with natural protection of those who have already been infected with COVID? 

For the time being, I have decided to not take the vaccine.  This could change. I realize that the flu and vaccines for it are very different, but my own experience has been that I have been healthier in those years that I have not taken the flu vaccine.  I am relatively young and in good health and do what I can to maintain a healthy immune system.  And during this pandemic, I have pastorally ministered to thousands of people without having symptoms of COVID. 

It seems to me that for people who are at high risk from COVID, the cost/benefit analysis weighs in favor of taking the vaccine.  I have recommended to my dad that he take it, but he refuses.  I’m not going to pressure him or lose sleep about it.   

Given the level of uncertainty, I think it is presumptuous to say every single person is morally obliged to take the vaccine.  I think that humility about the limits of our knowledge and a proper respect for human autonomy mean that people should make their own informed decisions regarding the vaccine.

This blog post will be published on the parish Mighty Network.  If you have any thoughts or comments, or have reliable sources to which you can refer me, that would be greatly appreciated.