WELLINGTON, New Zealand (ChurchMilitant.com) – Christians may refuse abortion-tainted jabs, as their decision “is grounded in a core principle of the particular Christian religion and the objection to abortion,” New Zealand’s superior court has ruled.
Pope Francis and Cdl. Pietro Parolin mandate vaccines
“The fact that others observing the same religion do not agree with the stance does not mean that the stance does not involve the observance of a religious belief,” Justice Francis Cooke declared in a landmark judgment on Feb. 25.
Citing Justice Cooke’s ruling, thousands signed a petition launched by the conservative Christian lobby Family First, on Thursday, urging New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to end the draconian jab mandates that Family First says are in “breach of the manifestation of religion and belief.”
Vaccine Fanatics and Faith Defenders
Vaccine zealots compared the court’s pro-life ruling to throwing kerosene on a fire and quoted Pope Francis’ endorsement of the abortion-tainted jab to attack conscientious objectors to COVID-19 injections.
“It’s very much like a copycat argument we have seen before in the United States,” vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris objected. “Anti-vaccine groups take these religious objections to court and use the argument of fetal cell lines, which is quite weak.”
“The Catholic Church has positions on the use of vaccines being developed using fetal cell lines. We do observe the pope rolling up his sleeve to get his COVID vaccine and encouraging everyone else to do so,” Petousis-Harris, associate professor at the University of Auckland, said.
Speaking to Church Militant, prominent ethicist Dr. Michael Pakaluk said the most important aspect of the court’s ruling was that others practicing the same religion did not have to agree with the objection to vaccines using fetal cell lines.
Pakaluk, professor of ethics and social philosophy at Catholic University of America, elaborated:
Many Catholics have been guilty of a fallacy, which this judge points out. The fact that the Catholic religion does not require someone in conscience to reject the vaccine because of its association with abortion does not imply that someone may not, in conscience, based on Catholic beliefs, rightly believe himself to be bound to reject the vaccine.
Drawing on the recent example of singer Neil Young withdrawing from audio streamer Spotify to protest podcaster Joe Rogan’s interview with scientist Dr. Robert Malone, Pakaluk added:
We may not agree with Neil Young, but we all recognize his right in conscience to withdraw his music from Spotify because of Spotify’s connection with a podcast he finds highly problematic. Likewise, we should all recognize the right in conscience of religious believers to withdraw their support from a vaccine because of its connection with abortion.
In his ruling, Justice Cooke observed that several workers, including police and defense personnel subject to mandatory vaccinations, had objected to taking the Pfizer vaccine on the grounds that it was tested on cells derived from an unborn human child.
The court considered the testimony of New Zealand’s chief science advisor at the Ministry of Health, Dr. George Town, who confirmed that “such testing did occur” — although Town was unable to confirm whether the baby in question was aborted.
Justice Cooke also weighed conflicting statements from Christian ministers. Presbyterian pastor Rev. Raharuhi Koia testified that “the requirement to be vaccinated is inconsistent with other Christian values,” while principal military chaplain Rev. Peter Olds argued that “the mandates are not in conflict with the free exercise of religious belief.”
Justice Francis Cooke
Conscientious objectors to the vaccine quoted scriptural texts to substantiate their claim for religious exemptions, including 1 Corinthians 3:16–20, which states, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? … So glorify God in your body.”
The justice said he accepted the submission that “an obligation to receive a vaccine, which a person objects to because it has been tested on cells derived from a human fetus, potentially an aborted fetus, does involve a limitation on the manifestation of a religious belief in ‘observance, practice or teaching’ of religion contemplated by § 15.”
Section 15 (manifestation of religion and belief) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, states that “every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice or teaching, either individually or in community with others and either in public or in private.”
New Zealand of All Places
British pro-life campaigner Dave Brennan expressed his joy that “New Zealand, of all places — one of the most draconian regimes when it comes to COVID-19 restrictions — has granted religious exemptions for those who cannot, in good conscience, accept an abortion-derived jab.”
Dave Brennan, executive director of the pro-life project Brephos of the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform U.K., lamented:
How shocking that a secular court understands something that many of our Christian leaders fail or refuse to do! Why isn’t Pope Francis fighting against the great evil of organ harvesting from babies, such as led to the creation of HEK-293 [the aborted fetal cell line used to test the Pfizer vaccine] and [which] continues to take place today?
Why isn’t Francis, at the very least, upholding the consciences of those who wish to object to such abhorrent practices? And where are all the evangelical leaders? Why is it left to the New Zealand High Court to fill the moral vacuum left by those who are meant to be the world’s Christian voice?
Police officer Joshua Wallace
In January, the Vatican refused to grant conscience exemptions to its staff, arguing that the Pfizer jab it administers uses fetal cells from an aborted baby for testing but not in the production of the vaccine, Church Militant reported.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cdl. Pietro Parolin, claimed that Pfizer used “cell lines from aborted fetuses only in the preliminary stages of vaccine testing in the laboratory, but no cell lines from aborted fetuses are included in either the composition or production.”
In October, three Swiss Guard soldiers were suspended by Vatican authorities for conscientiously objecting to abortion-tainted jabs (three others quit). At least 30 guardsmen had refused to take the China-virus vaccine, but most eventually capitulated after a concerted campaign by the Vatican to indoctrinate and convince the elite corps to take it.
The Vatican (an independent city-state) was the first country in the world to issue a decree threatening legally mandatory vaccinations and suggesting that employees could lose their job if they refuse to take the jab.
On Sept. 18, Parolin signed a decree ordering unvaccinated Vatican employees to be prohibited from entering their workplaces.
Earlier, Slovakian bishops categorically declared that Catholics were not permitted to have a conscientious objection to the novel gene therapy because “vaccination, as such, is not inherently bad.”
Detective senior sergeant Ryan Yardley with his wife, Victoria
“A conscientious objection concerns conduct which is, in essence, wrong,” the bishops argued. “If someone rejects it [vaccination], they cannot invoke a conscientious objection” for “even conscience can be wrong.”
The court petitions in the New Zealand case were filed by 25-year police veteran Detective Ryan Yardley, police officer Joshua Wallace and an unnamed defense force worker.
The trio stated they did not wish to be vaccinated and faced termination if they did not get the jab by March 1, 2022. All three were motivated by their Christian faith, Yardley revealed.
The High Court in Wellington also heard evidence from 164 police officers and 115 defense staff who refused to be vaccinated.