by Ben Mullen

Part one of this paper identified the four arguments Dr. Collins (and really, every “Christian ethicist”) uses to persuade Christians to take the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, or AstraZeneca COVID vaccines, despite their use of a cell line propagated from an aborted fetus. Those arguments are:

1) The abortion to which this fetal tissue is tied happened a long time ago, and therefore is no longer morally significant.

2) The abortion was legal in the jurisdiction in which it occurred, and thus is of no moral consequence.

3) No new fetal tissues have been used in association with these vaccines, which absolves those seeking to benefit from the prior abortion from any moral liability.

4) The health benefits that would accrue from these vaccines are so urgent in light of the current pandemic that all moral reservations about abortion must be suspended.

In part one, only the first argument was addressed, and it was argued that the passage of time does not redeem an immoral or evil act, but only the blood of Christ shed for sinners. And chillingly, just as Dr. Grouchy prophesied from the mount, a “variant” has already spawned.

The “Time Passages” argument is essentially a “degree of separation” argument. In other words when enough time – or degree of separation – has passed, immoral acts magically become moral, though Dr. Collins does not condescend to tell us by what oracle he has conjured this dictum.

Since the writing of this first draft, a more clever variant has spawned; the “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” argument. This hellish mutant argues that the current HEK 293 line, used in various ways by all current COVID vaccines, is just a “mirror of a mirror”, or replica of a replica, of a cell line originally propagated from the abortion in question, and has no direct relationship to the abortion itself.

Dizzying, I know, but the bug in the drug is when you take all the mirrors off the wall and flip back through all the pages of the calendar, there’s still a dead baby.

There’s still a murdered soul, a weeping girl, the imaged choked by icy gloves.

There’s still blood on the hands shaken against heaven, “I will not die! I will be like God!

I will mummify in masks, stew in sanitizer, lock my door against the destroyer.

I will drink from the needle of living water, mark my doorposts with magic, make my sacrifice in the dark, and I will NOT submit to the throne of heaven; I will be like God! I will not die!

So says the fist of the proud. For the knees of the weary, there’s another fountain of water, another bloody hand, another sacrifice.

In Hebrews 9:14, the author beautifully speaks of the cleansing blood of Christ, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world; “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience of dead works to serve the living God”.

What great, good news for every man, boyfriend, or husband who has pressured or coerced a woman into having an abortion, paid for an abortion, or threatened abandonment of the relationship if, as Dr. Collins so artfully phrases it, the pregnancy is not “electively terminated”; they can be forgiven of their great evil. Let’s not forget, behind every abortion stands a man who would not take responsibility for his part in creating a human life.

What great, good news for every woman weighed down with guilt over a life taken in her own body at some time in the past. She can be forgiven.

Abortion is not the unpardonable sin, though it is a great evil that scars the soul. Many women have testified to crippling depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts resulting from their decision to end the life conceived within them.

And yet it is not a sin that can somehow overthrow the pardon and forgiveness purchased for every penitent sinner through the precious blood of Christ. Hebrews 10:11-12 says,

11 And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

No earthly work, no temple sacrifice of bull or goat will ever take away even one sin; but the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross takes away all sin of the believer for all time. The apostle John says it this way in the first chapter of his first epistle; 1 John 1:6-9,

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Notice in verse nine that the blood of Jesus in His sacrificial death for sin cleanses the believer from ALL sin. Not some sin, or this sin but not that sin; ALL sin. And verse nine says when we confess our sin, He cleanses us from ALL unrighteousness.

In verse eight the Holy Spirit warns us against denying the reality of sin, as Dr. Collins does when he calls abortion an “elective pregnancy termination” rather than sin. So again, Dr. Collins sets himself against Scripture and proves to be an unreliable guide to the thousands he influences.

His denial that abortion is sin but rather a euphemistic “elective pregnancy termination” actually hurts people more than coronavirus, because it hinders people from seeking the life-giving spiritual water and cleansing blood of Christ. It’s only the conviction of sin by the Word of God and the Spirit of Christ that causes the heart to see the need for Christ; no conviction, no conversion.

As Paul warns us in Romans 16:17 of all false prophets, this man should be “marked and avoided”. And now to the next two arguments Dr. Collins makes to justify the use of vaccines tied to an aborted fetus:

2) Abortions in the Netherlands – where this particular abortion occurred – were then and now legal, and thus this particular abortion is of no moral consequence.

Because something is legal under a particular government, does that make it moral and pleasing in the eyes of God? Prostitution is legal in some localities of Nevada, and yet God forbids it in I Corinthians 6:16-18, 16 “Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, “The two will become one flesh.”

17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Should we ignore God and pound on the bawdy house door just because Collins suggests the ethic of the Christian life is, “whatever the law allows?”

Who is this prophet of Baal who bids us wallow in the valley of Sodom when God calls us to scale the heights of Sinai? Collins would have us scratch for dirt and call it gold, when God would have us reach for the stars of heaven and grieve that our hands are still covered in dust.

“Be holy as I am holy”, God commands through the apostle in I Peter 1.

“In your faith supply moral excellence”, this same apostle rouses us in II Peter 1, “and in your moral excellence, knowledge;

6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness;

7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love”.

While Collins implies we can make peace with abortion if it is legal and beneficial, Paul warns us in I Thessalonians 5:22 to “abstain from every form of evil”, and Peter exhorts us in I Peter 3:11, “to turn away from evil and do good”.

As the apostle well says in Ephesians 5:11-12, 11 “And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. Indeed. The ethic of the Christian life is not, “whatever the law allows”, but rather the holiness and moral goodness the Almighty God calls us to.

3) No new fetal tissues have been used in association with these vaccines, which exempts this abortion that did occur in 1973 from any moral question.

This argument is curious in its incoherence and comical in its naïve expectation that it will be taken seriously. Like a Christmas tree decked in garish lights and cheap tinsel, so this argument comes to us festooned with the babbling incoherence of an infant and the sophomoric zeal of the underclassman.

There is simply no reason to believe what Collins says on this point, as he offers no reason to do so. Like a bridge that suddenly vanishes as it begins to arch the river, and then suddenly reappears as it reaches the other bank, Collins provides no intermediate link between his proposition and conclusion, no girders or pillars on which the argument stands.

On what moral grounds or logic has Dr. Collins determined that the lack of repetition of an evil act absolves that evil act of any moral consequence? He doesn’t deign to tell us.

He points to no sacred writ where we might cipher his pronouncement, no tablets of stone upon which his argument stands, no burning bush that revealed the divine mystery to him. He appears to have conjured it out of thin air to suit his need. If the subject weren’t so serious, it would be laughable to even spend a moment on this hodge-podge.

It reminds me of a game of checkers I played with my young nephew years ago. He was losing badly but had managed to crown a few kings. In desperation, he suddenly dubbed these heretofore board-bound kings, “flying kings”, which he could fly around the board at will and wipe out all my checkers.

I know, I know. Some checker players actually allow “flying kings”. But it is a forced, contrived maneuver. It defies the normal expectation of fair play. There really are no such creatures as “flying kings”.

And there is no such thing in the Bible as “single fault indemnity”.

There is no such thing as “letting it slide”, “we’ll let it go this time”, or “sweeping it under the rug”. As Jesus said in Matthew’s Gospel, “you shall give account for every careless word”.

It just doesn’t pass the “smell test”. It doesn’t meet the test of logic. And it wont’t fly at the kitchen table.

Would a betrayed wife accept the argument that an instance of adultery should be overlooked just because it was only a “one-night stand” a long, long time ago?

HUSBAND: “Honey, I have a confession to make … years ago, I cheated on you”.

WIFE: (Unable to speak, sobbing uncontrollably …)

HUSBAND: “But it only happened once, and it never happened again!”

WIFE: “Oh, well why didn’t you say so in the first place, there’s no problem then … by the way, could you pass the ketchup?”

That’s a conversation that would never take place except in the morally impoverished thinking of Dr. Collins. A betrayed husband or wife is naturally devastated by even a single instance of betrayal, and the fact it never happened again is no comfort to the fact that it did.

Every instance of sin carries within itself its own consequences and destructiveness – admittedly some greater and some lesser depending on the nature of the act – and the corruption of one act of sin is not mitigated by the cessation of that sin.

No respectable court of law would pardon a convicted murderer just because he never fired another shot. He’s roundly guilty of the murder he did commit, singular or multiple.

Collins commented in another article in lifenews.com, “Even for people who are pro-life, who are troubled by abortion, the use of fetal tissue for research, since they are being derived anyway, if that is going to save a life someday, seems like a credible stance.”

Does this man even listen to himself talk? “Yes, abortion is troubling, but since it’s happening anyway, and since fetal tissue is being derived that might save a life, we might as well go with the flow and make the best of it”.

What if we applied that reasoning to the unrestrained medicating of young children for any and every fit and snit under the sun? “You know, I really have a lot of reservations about medicating young children with psychotropic drugs; but hey, it seems like it’s happening anyway and if it gets’em to sit down and shut up for awhile, maybe we should just keep druggin’ ‘em”.

Does this man have convictions about anything? Does he draw the line in the sand anywhere and say, “no, no further, because thus says the Lord”?

Apparently not. In Mark Twain’s epic tale, “Huckleberry Finn”, Huck and Jim become entangled with two unsavory characters who pass themselves off as European royalty, or “dukes”. These two rascals “con” simple folks up and down the Mississippi out of their money with various schemes, until these good-hearted souls finally catch on and rail them out of town with tar and feather.

While the apostle’s admonition to not return “evil for evil” would restrain us from such a barbaric practice, it would not be at all out of keeping with good Christian behavior to show Dr. Collins the city limit sign.

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