WEBINAR SCHEDULE
All times are central time.
9:00 am Opening of Webinar by ITEST Director, Dr. Tom Sheahen
9:05 am Opening prayer by Fr. Tom Davis, founder & president of the Liberty Institute for Faith & Ethics (L.I.F.E.)
9:15 am Dr. Melissa Moschella, Why It Is Morally Right to Take the COVID Vaccine
9:50 am Dr. Stacy Trasancos, Scandal and the COVID-19 Vaccine Moral Calculus
10:20 am Q & A and Dialogue between Melissa and Stacy
10:55 am Wrap up by Tom Sheahen
10:58 am Closing prayer by ITEST Associate Director, Sister Marianne Postiglione, RSM
Stacy Trasancos, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of Bishop Joseph Strickland’s St. Philip Institute of Catechesis and Evangelization in Tyler, TX and Chief Research Officer of Children of God for Life. She is a Fellow of the Word on Fire Institute and Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University Catholic Studies program. Her work focuses on the integration of faith and science. Recently, she has been a weekly guest host for Relevant Radio. She is the author of Particles of Faith: A Catholic Guide to Navigating Science (Ave Maria Press, 2016, Student Edition 2019) and articles for National Catholic Register, NCBQuarterly, and Catholic Answers Magazine. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Penn State, graduated summa cum laude with a M.A. in Dogmatic Theology from Holy Apostles College & Seminary, and worked as a Senior Research Chemist for DuPont Lycra®. Stacy is a mother of seven and grandmother of six. She and her husband, Jose, live with their family in Hideaway, Texas. See her position at National Catholic Register and Catholic Answers.
Melissa Moschella, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and a Visiting Scholar at the Heritage Foundation’s B.K. Simon Center for American Studies. Her research and teaching focus is on natural law, bioethics and the moral and political status of the family. She is the author of To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education and Children’s Autonomy (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and of numerous articles published in scholarly journals as well as popular media outlets, including Bioethics, The Journal of Medical Ethics, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, The Journal of Law and Religion, The American Journal of Jurisprudence, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Public Discourse. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, received a Licentiate in Philosophy summa cum laude from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and received her Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Princeton University. See her position in First Things and The Public Discourse.
THE INITIAL CONVERSATION
WCAT Radio’s “The Open Door” discusses ethical concerns about the new COVID-19 vaccines with two special guests. Stacy Trasancos, Ph.D., the Executive Director of St. Philip Institute in Tyler, Texas, and Melissa Moschella, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America and visiting scholar at the Heritage Foundation’s Simon Center for American Studies Both have recently written on ethics and the new vaccines.
Is it moral to play Russian roulette? Is it moral to partake in a perceived benefit knowing that some will die or be crippled for life from the product?
I am disgusted when I hear Catholics say it is ok to take abortion tainted experimental treatments. Seems to come from overly educated people with little common sense and unformed consciences.
Wrong, it is never moral to take a vaccine with risks (3% hospitalized according to FDA, hundreds dead according to VAERS) when there’s a risk free over-the-counter drug which works even better:
https://figshare.com/s/f6cb37b46bcff5dd1306
COMPLETELY AGREE Prof Nazar ! This madness needs to cease !
Interesting discussion. I have a question and a few thoughts.
1. I would really like to get more clarity about why I hear folks say about cell lines like HEK293, “ they perpetuate themselves in the lab” and that is why their use is “much different” than the use of fetal tissues in research. My understanding is that they are cells that divide and replicate just like they would have if they were in that person’s body. I don’t understand why people find this distinction important. The cells comprising fetal tissues used in research are continuing to behave like cells in tissues ( ie living and dividing growing etc)…just in a laboratory setting. Why is this worse or different? It seems only a matter of sample size and method not a moral difference.
2. When I hear “the use of HEK293 does not perpetuate further abortions”. I think I flatly disagree. This is only true in the sense that the particular cell line is perpetuated, as discussed. However, bigger picture, the scientific community looks at the use of these cell lines and says human cells are good to work with, abortion is legal, we will scratch the abortion lobby’s back if they scratch ours. A lot of political and monetary decisions are being influenced by “the good that can be done”.
3. I just watched a film on Stanley Plotkin at Hillemanfilm.com and Dr. Plotkin flat out says he justifies the work done and thinks it was 100% moral. This is how the scientific community sees the use of aborted fetal research.
Great discussion, and I appreciate all involved. Everyone represented their position competently and nobly. At the end of the day for me, Catholics have never had a better opportunity than this to force the hand of scientists toward more ethical practices because of the universal desire to return to normal life. I think Janet Smith’s recommendations for who should take these vaccines, and who should not, were prudent. It seems we may have missed a chance to be prophetic witnesses.
Regarding Melissa’s assertion that the vaccine will help restore damage done to the common good from covid, I would argue the damage done was not from covid but from an unprecedented overreaction to the virus. We are a year out and now have data (versus initial, poor-quality projections). Lockdowns and masks are ineffective. Schools didn’t need to shutter. Two well established drugs with excellent safety profiles are cheap, readily available and effective. And some scientists argue we may have already reached herd immunity. There isn’t a need for a vaccine to ‘get us out of this’. There is a need for common sense, targeted protection of the vulnerable (not universal restriction for the entire country).
I worked in pharmacological research. Stacy is right in that companies won’t hear anything past, “I’ll use this, but…” And to say that original cell lines won’t generate desire for more is like saying a car company won’t make additional models. As cell biology advances, the desire for more sophisticated lines advances as well.
I appreciate Fr. Ripperger’s distinctions regarding this matter. He said a more pressing sin is present and that is the trafficking in, and desecration of a murder victim. Children of God for Life used to have a statement from Fr. Michael Copenhagen on this site which elaborated this point (it may still be here but I couldn’t find it at first glance).
Thanks for this discussion and site!
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Did any of the august Catholic panelists shudder as Melissa defended the scientific use of miscarried children for experimental research?
Do we not profess that “Burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy”?
The more we sin, the more we become inured to sin.
On that point, let us revisit our retirement funds that Melissa discussed. We can instruct our financial advisors to avoid trading with companies & in funds which finance pharmaceutical, cosmetic & medical fetal research for profit and “the common good”.
That would answer Stacy’s repeated question: “Moving forward, what can we do to protect ALL LIFE ?”
The financial fallout would be a well deserved “penance” but would begin to move humanity away from our barbarism…and perhaps save the Barque of Peter from sinking in the flood of blood.
I fear that many, if not most, within the Church have become desensitized to the horror of the legalized genocide being perpetrated daily in our neighborhood hospitals and clinics. If our church leaders, moral theologians, and scientists were forced to observe just one barbaric murder of the unborn (as I have) – an innocent baby suctioned piece by piece from its mother’s womb, the doctors then reassembling and counting the body parts to be sure that no “products of conception” were left behind – and allowing the full weight of this evil barbarity to penetrate their minds and hearts, the conversation would change overnight. We are anesthetized to reality, and in this case I believe that nuanced moral theological discussions are more obfuscating than clarifying.
HEK293, PER.C6 et al. do not represent a onetime murder, widely recognized as criminal acts from which we are trying to redeem some good. They represent a scientific and pharmaceutical industry that routinely and with full complicity promotes and benefits from the brutal murder of our unborn children. How can we in good conscience receive medical treatments that were tested (let alone developed and produced) on these genocide victims, knowing full well that doing so allows for the perpetuation of this evil?
I am a physician. I am routinely in close contact with elderly patients. I have a moral responsibility to protect my patients from the transmission of COVID-19. Taking the “jab” is for me deeply morally objectionable if not unconscionable. I have done extensive research on alternative options to reduce transmission risk. The work of the highly published and respected critical care specialists at FLCCC Alliance has been a godsend. I am currently taking prophylactic ivermectin as an alternative to the currently available vaccines. I encourage all to evaluate the worldwide research they have collected and analyzed and Dr. Pierre Kory’s testimony before the U.S. Senate in December 2020. At the very least, we all have the moral responsibility to investigate alternatives that are comparable in safety and efficacy. The data is increasingly indicating that such alternatives exist.
BRAVO ! Well said. I’m so gladden to hear you tell truth about vaccines.
You cannot harvest humans to try and promote health in another human being.