Why My Conscience Will Not Allow Me To Take a Covid Vaccine: Part 2

The Ethical Implications of mRNA and DNA Technology

In Part 1, I explained how I could not take any of the existing covid vaccines because of the aborted fetal cell lines used in their development. I also made clear that this is my personal conviction and that I do not intend to bind the consciences of others. In this article, I will outline one more reason why my conscience will not allow me to take these vaccines. I reiterate my belief that others can come to different conclusions, but my hope is to further explain my own convictions, both for the sake of those who have asked and for anyone else who may have similar concerns.

(2) The Ethical Implications of mRNA and DNA Technology

While traditional vaccines work by exposing an individual to a weakened or dead virus in order to bring about immunity, the available covid vaccines use different technologies to stimulate an immune response. More specifically, traditional vaccines cause the body’s immune system to mount a response against the weakened or dead virus or viral fragments that are injected, creating immunity that protects the individual from infection when exposed to the virus in the wild. In contrast, none of the available covid vaccines inject any weakened or dead virus into the body to stimulate an immune response; instead, all of the available vaccines instruct the body’s cells to create proteins (specifically spike proteins) that the body then attacks in an attempt to bring about immunity. The ethical implications of these technologies will be discussed below, but first a fuller explanation of the different vaccines:

Pfizer and Moderna: mRNA Technology

From the University of Maryland Medical System:

mRNA is a piece of genetic material that cells use as "instructions" to create certain proteins in the body. It is like a bit of computer code.

When it's not inside a cell, mRNA needs protection to keep it from disintegrating. This is why the vaccines require cold temperature storage. To keep the mRNA from disintegrating when it enters the body, the COVID-19 vaccines use fat bubbles to shuttle the mRNA to certain cells.

The mRNA instructs these cells to create "spike proteins." These proteins simulate part of the SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus) cell structure and trick the body into believing it's infected with the virus.

From the European Union’s Research Magazine:

mRNA vaccines, in contrast, trick the body into producing some of the viral proteins itself. They work by using mRNA, or messenger RNA, which is the molecule that essentially puts DNA instructions into action. Inside a cell, mRNA is used as a template to build a protein. “An mRNA is basically like a pre-form of a protein and its (sequence encodes) what the protein is basically made of later on,” said Prof. Bekeredjian-Ding.

To produce an mRNA vaccine, scientists produce a synthetic version of the mRNA that a virus uses to build its infectious proteins. This mRNA is delivered into the human body, whose cells read it as instructions to build that viral protein, and therefore create some of the virus’s molecules themselves. These proteins are solitary, so they do not assemble to form a virus. The immune system then detects these viral proteins and starts to produce a defensive response to them.

Johnson & Johnson: DNA (viral vector) Technology

From Nebraska Medicine:

The Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine uses a slightly different approach than the previous two COVID-19 (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccines. The Johnson & Johnson product is an adenovirus vaccine or a viral vector vaccine. Here is how it works.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine delivers the virus’ DNA to your cells to make the spike protein. An adenovirus acts as a delivery vehicle used to carry the coronavirus genetic material (DNA). The adenovirus delivers the little piece of DNA to the cell that will then make the spike protein. After your cells produce the spike protein, your immune system creates antibodies toward the spike protein, protecting you from infection.

Ethical Implications of These Technologies

What are the ethical implications of these technologies? Is there any reason believers should pause before embracing their use?

Medical Treatment vs. Human Enhancement

With all the currently available covid vaccines, we are not relying on the body’s ability to develop an immune response to a dead or weakened virus; rather, we are seeking to direct (or program) an individual’s cells to create a protein they would not otherwise create, resulting in an artificial immune response induced by the messenger RNA. While I am not saying that such technologies are inherently wrong or immoral, we must seriously consider the differences between conventional medical treatments and those that seek to “enhance” or “improve” what it means to be human. Conventional medical treatments seek to repair what has been broken or sickened in a person’s body (or to stimulate the body’s own abilities to remain healthy); in contrast, human enhancement seeks to alter or modify the body’s normal processes, often for the purpose of making humans “better.” This distinction between restoring and enhancing is central to determining whether or not various treatments are ethical:

Unlike traditional vaccination, the primary vaccines employed in the United States use cellular information molecules: messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), or deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These information molecules then enter the cell and hijack the body’s cellular-level processes to make an artifact similar to something found in the pathogen. This artifact is subsequently identified by the body as “foreign”, and the body responds to produce an immunity. It is an artificially created immunity produced by hijacking the cellular information systems. It forces the cell to do something it would not naturally do. The purpose . . . is to use the cellular protein production systems in a process that is could be compared to gain-of-function-like process. . . .

It is not only acceptable but in many cases necessary to use medical treatments that do not fall within the body’s normal systems. Using prosthetic devices to replace a missing or damaged part or life-preserving capability is very different than attempting to enhance or improve existing, working, operating body function. Intervention to replace or repair something damaged by disease or other event is not the same as adding functionality.

We should recognize a moral difference of using a bovine heart valve to replace a damaged human heart valve from using lab designed and created cellular information to artificially induce a process in a normal healthy cell. We wouldn’t cut off a person’s legs – or, let me say morally we shouldn’t – just to give them artificial legs that provide better function. This is morally repugnant (emphasis added).

With the use of mRNA and DNA technologies in the covid vaccines, I believe at the very least we are blurring the line between restoration and enhancement. It is good and right for humans to use technologies to repair what has been broken, but it is arrogant and dangerous to use technology for the purpose of making people “better.” Such efforts, while often motivated by good intentions, can further the sinful desire to create superhuman abilities. Even if these abilities begin with the limited attempt to produce immunity to a host of diseases (or to cure cancer, etc.), I am concerned that such technology becoming widely accepted opens a sort of “pandora’s box” when it comes to manipulating who we are as human beings. To be clear, I understand that the mRNA in mRNA covid vaccines is not “changing a person’s DNA,” but the medical and ethical concerns are not nearly that simple, and we cannot know all the short and long-term effects of our decisions to begin widely using such therapies: 

The eugenics ideas and implementation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had at its heart the concept of improving human DNA through selective breeding. Those desires for changing the information systems of the persons through external control are similar to using the mRNA and DNA medical devices. Hijacking the information processes inside the cell are based in a common technology that would allow for direct modification of our genetic code. Direct modification by genetic manipulation takes the eugenics objectives to the next level by making genetic modification instantly available. Once humans achieved the capacity to manipulate DNA easily it is too small a step to also think we should. . . . . [For these and other reasons], we should not modify the body in any manner that has as its purpose an artificial gain of function. This includes artificial manipulation of the informational processes of the cell. Cellular information processes, including the processes of protein synthesis and of genetic material, should be hands-off (emphasis added).

The Push for Transhumanism

Beyond the ethical concerns related to artificial enhancement of human beings through mRNA and DNA technology and the potential dangers associated with such therapies, I am also concerned about the push by some for transhumanism. I include this concern with my concerns over the mRNA and DNA vaccines because both involve attempts to artificially enhance human beings in order to make them “better.” As mentioned above, such efforts are categorically different from treatments like conventional vaccines, other drugs, surgeries, etc., as all of these seek to heal what is sick, repair what is damaged, or improve or stimulate normal functions of the body. While surgery to repair a torn ligament or to repair a damaged blood vessel is an attempt to restore the human body to its original, non-broken state, artificial enhancement seeks to make humans “better” in some way—but “better” in a way that is not truly human. This enhancement is not simply limited to attempts to improve one’s health. Listen to MIT describe the future that is at our doorstep:

[T]echnology could allow people to make themselves “better than well” by using enhancements such as brain modifications to increase memory or reasoning capabilities, alterations to biochemistry to increase resilience to the environment, or the creation of new capacities. Benefits might also include living for much longer or alterations to people's appearances to make them more attractive or more aesthetically distinct.

Humanity is entering a “trans-human” era, where biology is treated as something to be manipulated at will, depending on one’s lifestyle interests rather than health needs. But questions remain about how far society is prepared to accept these kinds of applications and what ethical issues they create (emphasis added).

Transhumanism also includes the melding together of the human being with the technological world. This idea is not simply science fiction but is actively being pursued by some very powerful and influential people, some of whom have openly called for the merging of biological human beings with technology. One of the most prominent examples is Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. The author of several recent books including The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2017) and COVID-19: The Great Reset (2020), Schwab has repeatedly explained what he sees as the future of humanity:

“At the end, what the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.”

In what ways will these identities be merged? Schwab has spoken candidly about implanting technology within us to “help” us be “better connected” to others via the internet. When asked in a 2016 interview when humans will have microchips implanted enabling them to communicate with others, this was Schwab’s response:

Certainly in the next ten years. And at first we will implant them in our clothes. And then we could imagine that we will implant them in our brains, or in our skin. And in the end, maybe there will be a direct communication between our brain and the digital world. What we see is a kind of fusion of the physical, digital, and biological world.

While cybernetic implants that would enable humans to communicate digitally with others could arguably aid human productivity and connectedness (humans could communicate without the need of a device and without typing or writing), such communication would alter the very nature of what it means to be human. 

What does all this have to do with the use of mRNA and DNA technologies in the covid vaccines? The broad acceptance of these technologies by so many people in such a short time, combined with the ongoing push to vaccinate nearly everyone on the planet, is opening up the possibility of a brave new world where once-questionable technologies become a normal part of life. Even Anthony Fauci admitted just two years ago that the mRNA and DNA technology being used in the available covid vaccines would not gain wide acceptance unless there were an emergency such as a pandemic (the head of Bayer’s pharmaceutical division echoed this view). But now that these technologies have been accepted by many as equivalent to traditional vaccines (often without much consideration), I am concerned about what other technologies will be accepted in the name of “defeating covid.” To be fair, I understand my concerns could be labeled a slippery slope fallacy, and under different circumstances I would agree. But since those who have advocated so heavily for the covid vaccines are the same individuals advocating for more lockdowns, continued masking, digital vaccine passports, AND technologies that will increasingly result in the fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities, I believe there is legitimate reason to be concerned.

Concluding Thoughts

While I am genuinely concerned about the push for transhumanism and the precedent being set by the wide acceptance of mRNA and DNA technology, in the end I am more acutely concerned about the ethics of the vaccine technologies themselves. At the very least, I believe there are many unanswered questions about mRNA and DNA technologies that we would be wise to consider before presuming such therapies are morally neutral. Personally, I wrestle with the ethics of these technologies, as I believe we are getting close to “playing God” just like we are with attempts at human cloning or so-called “designer babies.” And even if the technologies themselves are morally neutral, which I think would be fair to say, the use of such technologies are fraught with dangers of doctors and scientists (and corporations and governments) attempting to play God, believing they know what “better” human beings should be like. In my view, such attempts to create “better” human beings is very closely related to the efforts of eugenicists in the United States in the 1920s and 30s and the work of utopia-minded authoritarians around the world (e.g., Hitler) who sought to create a so-called master race. These concerns about human enhancement are one more reason I cannot in good conscience take any of the available covid vaccines. In the coming days I plan to elaborate on the remaining three reasons I set forth in my first article.