Page 59 - Vaccines

Moral responsibilities

dures entail acts which, if they were undertaken in
violation of the constituent parts of the therapeutic
principle, would be gravely immoral, risking killing or
involving the mutilation of the body of the human subject
upon whom they are conducted (it is enough to think of
the use of drills, saws, clamps and scalpels). The truth
here is certainly not that a good end justifies immoral,
evil (mutilating) means, but rather than actions which
may appear at first sight to be such can only be properly
understood for what they are, not just by intention, but
through what is deliberately done in and through the
various sub-acts which together constitute the medical
or surgical act as a whole, by those expert in their field,
or in an emergency even by an unqualified person trying
to amputate a gangrenous limb to seek to save another’s
life, imminently under threat. Provided they are con-
ducted with the informed consent of parents or guardi-
ans and within a stringent code of conduct, regularly and
scrupulously monitored to prevent the abuses noted
above, research upon the bodily remains of deceased
human foetuses in order to develop effective and safe
vaccines, however gory the individual stages may be,
would be morally legitimate.

c. State health authorities

In principle, and on the basis of the principles of the
common good and of subsidiarity, the State health
authorities have the right and even the duty to intervene
to protect the lives and health of those for whom they are
responsible, also through vaccinations in the face of
actual, imminent or resurgent threats to public health.
They have the duty to ensure that such vaccines are
produced in a morally upright way and that they are safe,
accessible and affordable to those in need, either by

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