Coercive COVID-19 Vaccine Practices: Prophylactic Vaccine Tyranny is Destroying the Common Good

Prophylactic Tyranny is Destroying the Common Good

As soon as the FDA gave final approval to a Pfizer covid vaccine—which one? what is it called?—the vaccine mandates started rolling out, especially for hospitals and health care workers. The largest hospital system in our region of the country issued its vaccine mandate for physicians, nurses, and everyone corporate headquarters could think to include.  Corporate also provided a very onerous form for requesting a religious exemption. That form reads like the questions in a transcript of a cross-examination of a hostile witness. Have you ever had a flu-shot? Have you ever been vaccinated? So, why do you want an exemption for this vaccine? Literally. Apparently, based upon one’s answers, someone in the corporate office will decide whether physicians and other medical professionals are worthy of an exemption. Amazing stuff. This is a new twist on the ancient proverb quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:23, “Surely, you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’” In an even more offensive move, the hospital system is making their employees sign a waiver of liability preventing them from suing if the employee is harmed by the vaccine. All people in a free society should be outraged by such strong-armed tyranny.

Everyone, without exception, is a candidate for a religious exemption from COVID-19 vaccines. Religious exemptions are based in the nature of the human person and not upon the authoritative definition of religious doctrine. Religious exemptions are moral exemptions because the import of a religious exemption is not only what one believes but what one is required to do in order to act consistently and authentically as a consequence of the judgment of conscience arising out of a belief. There is no requirement in the law of this land that dictates that person may only exercise a right of religion if it accords with an ecclesiastically defined religious doctrine. Everyone has a right to free and conscientious, i.e., moral consideration and judgment. Moreover, the connection to abortion, most often cited as the basis of moral objection to certain vaccines, is but one element founded in practical reason that would lead a competent human being to the finding that a vaccine is morally offensive.

The basis of conscientious objection founded in religious belief is a matter of practical reason, that is to say that it is a matter of prudence, following philosophical and theological principles. This is the realm of morality. Such principles are formulae based upon observations founded in rational human nature. The Catholic Church holds that the human capacity we call the conscience is the subjective norm of morality. The objective norm is the Natural Law. It would be difficult to formulate a concept of human freedom without these. Without subjectivity, how can one act as an individual within society? Without the constraint of the observation of the Natural Law, how could freedom achieve its true and objectively discernable purpose of human flourishing? Justice demands a recognition of these two norms. The Divine Law, which comes later, is given as a corrective or means for clarification of the Natural Law. Divine (Positive) Law, as well as Natural Law whose fundamental dictates are perceived in the conscience, are of the same origin, the Wisdom that orders the universe.

The most basic perception of the moral conscience is apparent in the instinct to do good and avoid evil. Good and evil are in the choice of the will. Human nature establishes the norm. It is the responsibility of each individual to form his or her conscience according that which is good and right considering the defining characteristics of human nature. The elements of that formation are guided by the authentic teaching of Divine Revelation, but the foundation of that truth is within the very nature of the human person. Divine Revelation leads and illuminates that process of formation but it is not the origin of it. It originates in the Creator and is observable in nature, especially in the nature of the rational creature. It is within the capacity of competent individuals to apply their practical reason regarding the treatment of their own bodies. If cynical minds are allowed to prevail and individual judgments of conscience are circumvented, much damage is done to the common good and to the authentic human development within society.

The treatment and care of humans is done ethically when the persons receiving treatment are considered, according to right reason, to be human subjects capable of self-mastery and free choice. The requirement that consent be given to be treated prevents treatment from being considered an unlawful battery. Informed consent, a fundamental tenet of medical ethics, is necessary for free choice. More widely, it is a matter of personal security over collective tyranny. How many recipients are given actual scientific information about the benefits and risks of the vaccines? The declarations of government agencies do not suffice, especially when it is patently obvious that we are in an experimental period and scientific information is limited and conflicting. The common good is not achieved by suppressing the dignity of human beings in general or the life and freedom of individual human beings. But this is exactly what is being done. In such a case we experience some degree of tyranny over the group of lesser influence or members of society who do not have access to valuable information about their health and safety. The common good is not synonymous with the will of the majority or the most influential among us and in cases in which that controlling opinion leads to oppression of individual human rights, it is in opposition the common good.

In its application of the Natural Law, the Catholic Church speaks in view of the nature of the human person observable by reason, not upon a confession of a theological position or doctrine. The Natural Law is universal in its precepts. Consent, either express or implied, to a proposed treatment is indispensable. It is on that basis, not a defined theological doctrine, that the Catholic Church holds that vaccination must be voluntary. It is a matter of universal human right to be secure in one’s person. If, as seems to be the case now, some high-ranking prelates have placed their apparent empathy over right reason and justice, the statements flowing out of that empathy must be ignored. Their sincerity does not create justice. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) note on the COVID-19 vaccines from December of 2020 encompasses this very thought.[i] In that document the CDF states that (1) one may use the vaccine even though it is morally connected to abortion and (2) that practical intelligence tells us that vaccination cannot be mandatory; it must be voluntary. Practical intelligence is not, in the first instance, a religious concept. A human act is, by definition, voluntary. Choice is an act of the voluntary will. The concept of practical intelligence refers specifically to the moral choice of well-formed conscience guided by prudence, a human virtue.

The reasons that one would conscientiously object to the use of any treatment, prophylactic or otherwise, could be numerous. The Catholic Church expressly holds that one may refuse extraordinary treatment when the proposed course of action is ineffective, risky, or even so seriously inconvenient as to constitute an excessive burden. In every case the individual conscience must be followed and no one can substitute his or her judgment for the patient (potential vaccine recipient) or the patient’s proxy, without violating the person’s body. The practical judgment of an individual will be based upon safety, efficacy, individual factors, the advice of medical professionals, the good of others, and even psychological factors and matters of convenience. Human dignity and subjectivity demand this and no political or social body, be it governmental, ecclesiastical, or contractual-as in the case of an employer-, has the legitimate power to suppress the individual’s right to exercise freedom in accordance with the dictates of conscience, even in this matter. Individual conscientious judgments are to be met with reasonable efforts on the part of political and social institutions to find means of accommodation of expressions of one’s dignity and freedom, not with suppression and irrational segregation. Otherwise, the rights of conscience are effectively quashed and human life, dignity and freedom are diminished. A political or social entity cannot supplant the individual and free choices of persons either by mandate or onerous restrictions. Efforts to do so are destructive of justice.

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[i]“Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines,” Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (Dec. 21, 2020 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/12/21/201221c.html. I presented that information here: https://frontlinemoral.org/2021/03/14/the-problem-of-analyzing-cooperation-in-evil-and-the-covid-19-vaccines-part-3-the-vaccines-can-be-used-without-committing-moral-evil-this-use-must-be-voluntary/.