No, David Barton, Vaccines Don’t Contain Parts of Aborted Fetuses

David Barton (left); Eric Metaxas (right)

In addition to history, David Barton often tries his hand at distorting other subjects as well. On his Wallbuilders Live program (which is taped) yesterday, Barton said the following about vaccines:

This is a big fight that’s going on now with the vaccinations. There’s a whole bunch of people that do not like their kids participating in vaccinations for several reasons. One is that so many vaccinations now contain parts of aborted fetuses. So, just as a matter of conscience, “I don’t want that in my kid.”

That’s The Government Getting Involved

David:

And then there’s so many bad things happening from the newer vaccinations. We think we have to have a vaccination for everything now. If somebody gets sick, we’ve got to create a vaccination. And that’s just not accurate. That’s the government getting involved and it’s having bad consequences.

Apparently, Barton is a big fan of people getting sick and opposes medical progress. The only bad consequences come from people listening to nonsense like this and failing to immunize their children. Currently, measles cases are on the rise with more cases reported this year already than all of last year.

Pro-Life = Anti-Vax?

Associating the anti-vax propaganda with a pro-life position would be a ideological win for anti-vaxxers. That is why Barton’s distortion of the facts requires a response. If pro-life people think that actual fetal parts from abortions are in vaccines, some might refuse vaccinations on that basis.  What is the real situation?

In fact, vaccine methods were developed from cells derived from fetuses secured via therapeutic abortions before abortion was legal. The two cell lines in use today came from two subsequent abortions outside the U.S. Fetal cells allow the development of vaccine production indefinitely. As far as I can determine, the abortions were not conducted for the purpose of making vaccines, and no new abortions have taken place to create new vaccines. In other words, vaccines don’t encourage abortion, nor do vaccines use parts of a fetus in the vaccine (see this helpful summary for more information).

If vaccine use was a moral concern for a pro-life position, one would expect the Catholic Church to forbid vaccines. However, the conservative National Catholic Bioethics Center allows the use of vaccines developed from aborted fetuses.

Are there any vaccines for which there are no alternatives?

Unfortunately, at present there are no alternative vaccines available in the United States against rubella (German measles), varicella (chickenpox), and hepatitis A. All of these are grown in the cell lines WI-38 and/or MRC-5. (See note #7 of the statement of the Pontifical Academy for Life for a listing of vaccines and their source).

What do I do if there is no alternative to a vaccine produced from these cell lines?

One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.

The NCBC reasons that the risk to the life and health of one’s own children as well as other people’s children make vaccination the greater good. The NCBC also acknowledges that there are no parts of aborted fetuses in the vaccines.

What does it mean when we say that these products are made in “descendent cells”?

Descendent cells are the medium in which these vaccines are prepared. The cell lines under consideration were begun using cells taken from one or more fetuses aborted almost 40 years ago. Since that time the cell lines have grown independently. It is important to note that descendent cells are not the cells of the aborted child. They never, themselves, formed a part of the victim’s body.

How does one know when a particular vaccine has an association with abortion?

The cell lines WI-38, MRC-5 and Walvax-2 are derived from tissue from aborted fetuses. Any product grown in these cell lines, therefore, has a distant association with abortion. The cells in these lines have gone through multiple divisions before they are used in vaccine manufacture. After manufacture, the vaccines are removed from the cell lines and purified. One cannot accurately say that the vaccines contain any of the cells from the original abortion.

Leaving aside the reasons for the original abortions (they may have been to safeguard the health of the mother), any current cells from these cell lines were never a part of the aborted fetus. There are no parts of a fetus in a vaccine.

I don’t know if Barton’s words were ignorance or a deliberate attempt to distort the facts in order to discourage vaccinations. However, it would be a very dangerous development if anti-vax propaganda became aligned with a  standard pro-life position. He should retract what he said.

Hat tip to RWW for pointing this out. 

In Second Planned Parenthood Sting Video, PP Executive Appears to Negotiate Tissue Prices (Full Video)

Full video at the end of the post.
In the mean time, here is the second sting video dropped by Center for Medical Progress which is designed to bring attention to Planned Parenthood’s policies and practices related to organ and tissue donation and/or sale.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/MjCs_gvImyw[/youtube]
I will reserve comment on this video until I see the uncut footage.
In the mean time, comments are welcome but name-calling and disrespectful comments will be deleted. Discuss the video, the full version, the ethics of secret recording, the ethics of donating and/or selling tissue and other issues. I don’t mind expressions of support for abortion or opposition to it if done without demonizing those who think differently.
Full video:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwAGsjoorvk[/youtube]

Crushed

That word haunted me as I watched the undercover video of Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services Deborah Nucatola describe the care taken by abortion providers when they decide where to crush a fetus.
Crush
Under different circumstances, a physician would take similar care not to crush the baby anywhere but in this case, care is taken to avoid damaging tissue which might have market value.
This is hard to process.
Nucatola says, “I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
Kermit Gosnell missed an opportunity. He kept body parts in jars. Apparently, there is a market for them.
Of course, this video should lead to a legal and Congressional investigation. This video, even though heavily edited as Planned Parenthood points out in their rebuttal, raises enough questions and concerns that an investigation is warranted. Perhaps, we will find everything PP did was legal. Even if so, we may decide that some things should not be legal.
The video reminds us about what happens in an abortion. I remember interviewing Hillary Clinton’s Arkansas physician William Harrison who told me:

Anyone who has delivered as many babies as I have, and has seen hundreds of living and dead embryos and fetuses being spontaneously aborted as have I, knows exactly what we are doing when we provide an elective abortion for our patient. We are ending the life of an embryo or a fetus. Not the life of a person, but certainly a creature that might have become a person under other circumstances.

Crushed.
This video (see below) may lead to an investigation and discovery of wrongdoing. But it will almost certainly lead others to reflect about what happens in an abortion. I doubt any laws will change but I suspect some minds might.

The full version is here.
UPDATE: Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards apologized for Dr. Nucatola’s “tone and statements.”

Abortion and David Barton’s Theometeorology

It is all over Twitter. Salon and Right Wing Watch have stories about David Barton’s claim that legal abortion has triggered climate change and all sorts of other weather problems. Barton’s theometeorological pronouncement came during an appearance on Kenneth Copeland’s television broadcast. You can watch the segment here where he begins talking about abortion and the weather at about 18:55. Watch until the end to get the context.
At that point, Kenneth Copeland says that storms and hurricanes and murders don’t just happen. Barton agrees and adds that since we (meaning the U.S. I suppose) have embraced a wicked policy (legalized abortion), then God will take away his hand of protection. Because of God’s absence, then Barton claims:

Whap! Here comes storms like we’ve never seen before, here comes floods like, and here comes climate stuff that we can’t explain, all the hot times and all the cold times. Too much rain and not enough rain; we’re flooding over here, and we got droughts over here. And you know back in the early America days, when something like that happened, first thing they did was issue a call for a national day of prayer, repentance, humiliation, fasting and prayer. We have screwed up somewhere. We gotta get God’s help to get blessings back on this nation. And today we’re saying ‘oh no, it’s global warming.” No, we opened a door that lost God’s protection over our environment and that’s our choice.

Even if there was some theological merit to this line of thinking, the facts don’t support the link made by Barton and Copeland, as far I can tell. Just looking at hurricanes (this seems fair since Copeland specifically mentioned hurricanes), the worst hurricane in the U.S. was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The National Weather Service ranks U.S. hurricanes by number of deaths, cost and intensity. Most of the deadliest hurricanes happened before Roe v. Wade.


In fact, Katrina is the only hurricane after Roe v. Wade in the top ten. I only count seven hurricanes which happened after Roe v. Wade in the top 52. When it comes to cost (see the NWS report for that), the most recent hurricanes top the list because the amount of the losses are not adjusted for inflation. However, in terms of intensity, only two of the top ten storms occurred after Roe v. Wade. In terms of numbers of hurricanes, there has not been an increase in recent years. In fact, the NWS report says: “Table 6, which lists hurricanes by decades since 1851, shows that during the 40-year period 1961-2000 both the number and intensity of landfalling U.S. hurricanes decreased sharply.”

No support for the thesis there.

The murder rate (also mentioned by Copeland) does not support the theory. As I pointed out in an earlier post, violent crime including the murder rate has been falling since the early 1990s. The murder rate now is lower than it was in 1961.

When it comes to floods, prior to the current Colorado floods, the worst flood in history is the 1927 Mississippi River flood, followed by the 1937 Ohio River flood (this flood is famous in my home town of Portsmouth, Ohio since flood walls were built in response). While climate change may indeed bring about long term weather changes, including increased flooding, it does not appear that one can accurately associate meaningful weather disasters with the Roe v. Wade decision.

Did Limited Access to Abortions Keep Kermit Gosnell in Business?

On one hand, the responses of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) have not surprised me. Because they are advocacy groups, I expected them to defend abortion even as they applauded the verdicts.
On the other hand, I wondered if perhaps they would seek some common ground. Surely, everyone should be able to agree that killing babies after they are born should be condemned.  In addition, it seems that all concerned should welcome strict enforcement of laws regulating abortion as a means of finding and stopping any future Gosnell-like clinics.
Such reactions are not happening.
Planned Parenthood tweeted:

NARAL issued a statement missing any direct reference to the babies murdered by Gosnell. The statement begins by citing Ilyse Hogue, president of the group:

“Kermit Gosnell has been found guilty and will get what he deserves. Now, let’s make sure these women are vindicated by delivering what all women deserve: access to the full range of health services including safe, high-quality and legal abortion care.”

It seems to me that these statements confirm the worst fears of every pro-life advocate. Whether deliberate or not, by failing to even mention the murder of infants, these groups communicate a callous disregard for the lives of these children.
Apparently hoping to use the verdict to advance the cause, a NARAL tweet blames pro-life sentiment for Gosnell’s crimes:

NARAL spinners find numbers they like, but regarding both regulation and funding, they miss the facts of this case. Regarding funding, sources existed to pay for abortions at Gosnell’s clinic or for options other than his clinic. Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund paid for abortions at Gosnell’s clinic as well as at other abortion providers around the Philadelphia area. In fact, this funding source and others helped keep Gosnell going.
In 2007, three representatives from the Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund toured Gosnell’s Womens Medical Society in West Philadelphia. They saw nothing wrong. Even though the representatives were greeted by two people who called themselves doctors, the funders did not check credentials and continued to pay for abortions at Gosnell’s house of horrors.
When Gosnell’s crimes were first exposed in 2011, pro-choice advocates blamed the Hyde Amendment for driving women to low-cost providers like Gosnell. At that time, I responded that Gosnell had access to funding for the women who were seeking his services. As noted, various medical funds paid for abortions at his clinic. As this rate sheet demonstrates, it appears he billed Medicaid for allowed abortions. I suspect he stretched the truth on some of those billings.
As is now obvious, none of these funding sources provided adequate oversight. The funding was there but the horrors continued.
Despite the smoke screen from NARAL, one central issue in this case, whether one is pro-life or pro-choice, is the appalling lack of regulation of a so-called medical clinic.
The issue here is oversight, or rather the lack of it, and let’s not forget why that oversight was lacking. Kenneth Brody, Department of Health lawyer said there was consideration given to restarting abortion clinic regulation in 1999. However, the state did not resume inspections. Why? Brody told the grand jury:

…there was a concern that if they did routine inspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn’t meet [the standards for getting patients out by stretcher or wheelchair in an emergency], and then there would be less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion.

Worries over access kept Gosnell unregulated. Generally, pro-choice advocacy groups oppose laws which tighten oversight on clinics. Why should those who operate properly fear rational regulation? Only those acting in the darkness fear the light. For the sake of women and babies, let the light shine.