While the government doesn’t face a religious boycott of its so-far fictional COVID-19 vaccine, it’s increasingly clear that its smart-arse announcement of a “vaccine deal” last week was more trouble than it was worth.
While most of the press gallery cheered on cue for a deal that didn’t exist to make a vaccine that didn’t yet exist in Australian facilities that couldn’t make it if it did exist, Morrison then blundered by talking about the vaccine being as mandatory as possible.
He then had to backflip on that, using his friends at 2GB to assure Australians “there are no compulsory vaccines in Australia”.
Now it has bought a potential argument with religious conservatives, with Catholic archbishop Anthony Fisher, Anglican archbishop Glenn Davies and Greek Orthodox archbishop Makarios Griniezakis signing their own letter of intent expressing concern about the vaccine Morrison has a letter of intent for, given it is derived from a cell line from an aborted foetus.
Fisher has since made clearer exactly what his concerns are. There’s no talk of Catholic boycotts or campaigns against the vaccine. “Many people will have no ethical problem with using tissue from electively aborted foetuses for medical purposes,” Fisher says. “Others may regard the use of a cell-line derived from an abortion performed back in the 1970s as now sufficiently removed from the abortion itself to be excusable.”
But some, he says, won’t want anything to do with it. “I, for one, don’t think it would be unethical to use this vaccine if there is no alternative available,” Fisher says. “But I am deeply troubled by it.” And particularly troubled by any mandatory aspect to the vaccine.
It’s pretty rich for a senior figure in an institution that engaged in industrial-scale child abuse and covered it up to claim concern for the unborn. But the concerns expressed by the religious leaders take their place in a spectrum of opinion, ranging from lunatic conspiracy theories and vaccination denialism to wholly legitimate ones about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine that, if it ever arrives, will have been rushed into mass production, and continuing mysteries about COVID-19 itself.
It is Morrison’s blundering on compulsion that will continue to fuel this issue. The conspiracy theory fringe will continue to make hay with the idea that the government will compel people to get a jab. And the entry of religious conservatives into the debate complicates things immensely.
A pro-government outlet like The Australian, which has been backing Morrison and business leaders in criticisms of state leaders who insist on keeping borders closed, is also the platform of reactionary Catholics for whom Fisher’s “troubles” would not just be issues to be taken seriously, but the stuff of potential culture wars. Female journalists at News Corp tabloids, on the other hand, have been a strong force against anti-vax lunatics in recent years.
Morrison himself, unsurprisingly given his ardent Pentecostal faith, says that he has conservative issues on abortion but has indicated he’d prefer to leave the issue alone. Except, he now can’t leave it alone because he’s the one who insisted on hyping the vaccine announcement as some sort of Liberal triumph.
Still, it’s all hypothetical at the moment. It’ll be a nice problem to have if it ever becomes reality.
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Note### The legacy of rushed immunisation vaccines, when coupled with proposed RNA / DNA modifications and their effect on heredity factors, has the potential to create an entirely new set of problems that may be worse than the disease….no?
“‘Scotty From Marketing’s Patented Covid Vaccine’ available from media outlets near you” : or snake-oil?
Who was it that told us that “Journalism is so important these days, because it tells us what is going on and what it means to us”? … Was it Jones or Alberici in one of their Lateline ads?
As a 5-decade career scientist I made a detailed, well-documented, 10 page submission to the Senate Covid-19 Inquiry in the public interest. My document addressed a major issue of Science and Government , referred to C.P Snow’s seminal book of the same name, praised Scomo for adopting the no brainer of listening in the instance of the Covis-19 pandemic to expert science-based advice, dealt with many other extremely important related matters from a science-informed perspective, and concluded with the plea “Listen to scientists”.
Nevertheless the Inquiry Committee while thanking me for my effort and noting that it had read my document, decided in their non-scientist wisdom to regard my offering as only “correspondence”, declined to accept it as a Submission and excluded it from publication for general perusal on the Inquiry website. However if you are prepared to be enlightened and shocked about many matters you can read my rejected submission here: Gideon Polya, “Covid-19 pandemic, climate & Australia: risky ignoring of scientific advice”, Countercurrents, 28 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/covid-19-pandemic-climate-australia-risky-ignoring-of-science-based-advice/ .
Yet in stark contrast here we have non-scientist religious leaders bringing primitive superstition and bizarre religious beliefs into Page 1 public discussion about the hoped-for, life-saving Covid-19 vaccine(s). Indeed this unhelpful intrusion has been enabled by the appallingly anti-science and truth-censoring Australian Mainstream media (e.g. see Gideon Polya, “Lying Mainstream Media Ignore Expert New 9/11 WTC7 Demolition Report”, Countercurrents, 22 August 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/08/lying-mainstream-media-ignore-expert-new-9-11-wtc7-demolition-report/ ) – it may well end up sabotaging elimination of Covid-19 from Australia, infecting thousands, killing hundreds and economically devastating millions. Anti-climate science Christian Pentacostalist Scomo had 2 key tasks this year – keep Covid-19 out of his country and keep Covid-19 out of Aged Care homes – he failed on both counts, albeit not as badly as Donald Trump or Boris Johnson who should face prosecution.
Thank you Dr Polya; it is an outrage that these people have any sway on government policy for secular society
Morrison has no problem bullying all sorts of people in advancing his agenda (including policies detrimental to the planet)
yet before these religious people (who pontificate from their thrones about the “speck in their brother’s eye and yet ignore the huge logs in their own eyes”) Morrison is sheepish and deferential
I’d suggest a third task – keeping religious delusion out of government policies.
But but but but, a miracle is in the air.
Really Archbishops Fisher et al.! Those cells have probably undergone 1300 generations since their origin in the 70s. Far more than the number of generations the human race has gone through since 4004 BC. But that’s the nature of Original Sin. Talk about arguing about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.
“anti-vax lunatics in recent years.”
I am anti-vax mr keane. So because I have a different opinion to you I am a lunatic? I can assure you I am not a lunatic and i can prove it. And because I can prove that I am not a lunatic then you need to prove that I am a lunatic. All this means your statement is defamatory. What follows next?
Next comes your claim of Sovereign Citizenship, Jared.
I have never made such a claim, Andrew. So your comment is a typical f/wit inference that you have perfected over the years.
Touchy chap eh?
But can you prove it?
From dictionary.com
* .. lunatic (no longer in technical use; considered offensive) insane.
characteristic or suggestive of lunacy: wildly or recklessly foolish.
No doubt you ignore information about millions of people now alive because of vaccination programmes and instead believe proven scammers and fraudsters like Wakefield.
Possibly you believe that makes you something of an expert thus capable of speaking to various exaggerated and also uncorroborated claims about vaccination programmes.
If any of this sounds like you, then Yes, you are a lunatic (*).
Facts.
There is NO shown/known link between autism and vaccinations.
Wakefield is a liar and a fraud, he has sought to make money from his dangerous fraud, which saw vaccinations numbers drop and infections go up. Children suffered and died. He was severely sanctioned but should have been in prison for a good many years.
There have been a tiny proportion of children who have suffered long term consequences from vaccinations ?? Cause. ?? Predisposition.
Small Pox was eradicated by vaccination.
Tb, Mumps, Measles, German Measls, Polio were all reduced by successful vaccination and health programmes, until sabotaged by antivaxxer lunatics (*) and the SARS2 outbreak (which actually shows what happens in the ABSENCE of vaccines..
Agreed Richard. Billions of us could all argue the same to the ‘lunatics’ But would they listen? No chance!
You can’t prove you’re not a lunatic because proofs don’t exist except in maths and alcohol. There is evidence that wild polio has just been eliminated in Africa and it wasn’t from missionaries praying.