Cooperation with past evil?

A Defense of the Magisterial Teaching on Vaccines with a Connection to Abortion

Abstract

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised several moral questions, including theliceityofusingvaccinesproducedfrom tissuesthathaveaconnectionwithaborted human fetuses. In continuity with the pre- vious Magisterium, the Congregation for theDoctrineoftheFaithpublishedanote in December 2020 in which it addresses the subject,declaringtheliceityofvaccination accordingtotheprinciplesofcooperation in evil. The article intends to explore wheth- erandtowhatextentthiswayofarguingis sound. To do this, we initially present the sys- temofcooperationwithevilaccordingtothe Catholic moral tradition. Then we proceed through the different documents in which the Magisteriumdealswiththemoralityofusing biological material of an illicit origin. After that we analyze scholars’ debates regarding the way in which the magisterial documents argueabouttheliceityofvaccination.We conclude that, although it is not evident at first sight, the CDF’s arguments according to cooperation with a past evil are sound.