Page 36 - Vaccines

Vaccines and Catholic morality

also in all branches and dimensions of medicine,
demands that one human being not be sacrificed or
“used” for the (alleged) benefit of another. Thus, a
moribund patient may never be deliberately and directly
killed in order to try to save the life of another who is
awaiting a vital organ, nor must one or more unborn
child be killed to try to save another through “embryonic
reduction”, which is nothing other than selective (hence
deliberate or voluntary) direct abortion.⁸
In relation to transplants of organs and of tissues from
deceased persons, but also more generally in terms of
experimentation upon their bodily remains, a number of
points are in order. It is entirely inadequate to speak of
“therapeutic benefit”; outside of this context, a medical
act for the alleged or potential therapeutic benefit of
others (hence remote therapeutic benefit), is to be distin-
guished from one which is undertaken for the immediate
therapeutic benefit of the patient himself or herself, the
latter being morally legitimate, the former or remote
therapeutic benefit being justifiable only where it is a true
by-product of the immediately and directly beneficial
therapeutic act, on condition of proper consent. In
particular, the “harvesting” of dead bodies either for
allegedly “therapeutic” purposes (here clearly remote)
or for purposes of research in view of some even more
remote therapeutic advantage is gravely immoral,
involving the denial of, or complete indifference towards,
the resurrection of the body in some cases and also a
grave violation of the dignity of the human person whose
mortal remains are thus despoiled.⁹ The latter is all the

⁸ Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas personae,
n. 21.
⁹ Cf. Pius XII, Discours à l'Association des donneurs de cornée et
à l'Union des aveugles, 14th May, 1956; ID. Discours à la VIIIème

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