Oxford vaccine dismay

I AM really saddened to hear that the 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine which the Commonwealth government is arranging for us will be produced using cell lines derived from aborted humans.

I had hoped that the vaccine might make us all safer and help us to return to something like normal.

However, neither I or my family will ever agree to accept a benefit made available through the taking of innocent human life.

We will not be using the vaccine.

The reality is that human life begins at conception and the taking of any human life is evil and works against all attempts to promote respect for the person.

We are not worth saving if we become barbarians.

If we accept the necessity of this vaccine, what might we next accommodate to protect ourselves – the actual eating of our own children?

Owen Hitchings, Gordonvale

In my honest opinion, the fate of the golf course was more a result of low patronage, and its future would have been much rosier if more of the armchair protesters had played a few more rounds to make it more viable.

John R Vickary, Manoora 1498: Michelangelo is commissioned to

carve the Pietà.

1791: John Fitch is granted a US patent

for his working steamboat.

1843: Charles Thurber patents a

typewriter.

1945: Japanese diplomats board the USS Missouri to receive instructions on Japan’s surrender at the end of WWII. 1959: British Motor Corporation introduces the Morris Mini-Minor (above), designed by Alec Issigonis. It was only 10ft long but seated four passengers.

2000: Australia clinches the first Tri Nations Rugby Series with a 19-18 win over South Africa in Durban. BIRTHDAYS: Robert Walpole, first British prime minister (1676-1745); Mother Teresa, Indian nun and founder of Missionaries of Charity (1910-1997); Macaulay Culkin, American actor (1980-); Jesse Martin, Australian yachtsman (1981-).