Yesterday was Maria's one year physical. Asute readers will realize that my youngest is actually 16 months old. I kept putting off the dreaded MMR vaccine. I kept praying for a miracle.
In 1960, a rubella outbreak spread through Pennsylvania. Lots of pregnant women caught the virsus. Their unborn babies risked severe medical complications including blindness. The mother and father of WI-38, choose to abort their baby and donate his remains "to science." Scientists at Merck used a piece of the baby's lung tissue to make a vaccine which 40 years later prevent my Maria from catching rubella and passing that disease on to her unborn sibling or another innocent baby.
I really hate abortion. I know that vaccines are a remote cooperation with evil, but I hate that those poor parents are probably consoling themselves with the crime of murder by telling themselves that "at last their baby helped children." I don't sit in judgement. It absolutely sucks to get hit with the news that your baby can have a fatal disease while you are pregnant. It sucks more to bury a baby.
Because I'm a mother who hit both of those situations, I also know the truth. Only God can heal us. God's love wraps us up in those moments. His love holds a mother up during the scary conversation in the Ob office. His love holds us up at the grave site service and all the lonely nights afterwards.
The real sin of the vaccines is that they are one more of Satan's lies saying that the sin of abortion "is necessary" or "for a good end." It's the lie of my trusted Ped who says "whats the big deal? All the mothers in my son's Catholic school say it's not a big deal because it happened so long ago."
And I'm left at Maria's 9 month old doctor's appointment, holding the Vatican report on vaccines saying, "Well, it is a big deal."
It's a big deal because I want a choice. I want to be able to exercise my religious conscience AND have a kid who is protected from spreading disforming diseases to other unborn children. I want an ethical Rubella vaccine.
So, I prayed. I procrastinated. I badgered friends who have husbands in high places in relevent gov't offices.
Yesterday, I showed up 3 months late and submitted Maria to the unethical MMR vaccine.
It stunk! I actually had a empathic new doctor, (our Mother looked out for me in the Ped rotation yesterday). She is an immigrant from India and told me that she helped her kids dodge all types of vaccines. She offered to give Maria only Measels and Mumps, and let her try to catch Rubella on her own before age 16. After all my prayer and thought on this issue, that just didn't seem like a good course.
I told my doctor that I was ready to submit to the MMR, but I need to make a big record that I firmly objected to this unethical vaccine. My doctor was super kind. She tracked down the head vaccine person from Kaiser Permenente. She promised to send her own internal memo on this subject.
When the stick time came, I knelt down in the vaccination room. I prayed for the baby that died. I prayed for his parents. I prayed for forgiveness. I told the nurse right before the needle stick "I really wish I didn't have to do this. I'm against abortion and this vaccine used cells from a voluntarily aborted fetus."
The nurse said "I just heard that from the doctor. I never knew that before."
My small, small consolation in all of this is that now 2 doctors and 2 nurses know that the Merck MMR vaccine is made from cells from an actual child.
We left the doctor's office in tears, my tears and Miss Maria's tears. We're supposed to go back in 8 weeks for a chicken pox vaccine, also unethical. That's a far harder balance for me. It's harder for me to balance that chicken pox poses a public health risk to others.
Please join me in an act of sacrafice for WI-38 parents today.
