Stem cells used to make vaccines

To the editor;

Do pharmaceutical companies make rubella/MMR, hepatitis A and chicken pox vaccines from cell lines derived from aborted babies? You bet they do, and for many people this creates a moral dilemma, because their children can't get into school without these vaccinations.

Pharmaceutical companies can create vaccines by using animal tissue rather than collaborating with the abortion industry in order to replace exhausted lines of stem cells taken from aborted babies. By their collaboration, the pharmaceutical companies legitimize the abortion industry.

Do people commit a serious sin if they have their children vaccinated with vaccines derived by cell lines taken from aborted babies? The answer is no, because people receiving the vaccines are so remote from the makers. Pharmaceutical companies are guilty of using this method of vaccine development when there is no medical need to use fetal tissue.

What can we do to stop this practice? We can petition the pharmaceutical companies to use other methods of making vaccines. If you own stock in one of these companies, go to the company meetings and voice your protest or sell your stock.

Most important, pray and write to your federal and state legislators asking them to sponsor bills banning the use of fetal tissue in the manufacture of vaccines.

MARCUS R. SCHAEFER, Benton, Mo.