Bishops Express Moral Concerns Over Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

As NPR reported, this is because this particular vaccine was developed using PER.C6, a cell line that originated from a fetus that was aborted in 1985.

As Dr. James Lawler from Nebraska Medicine told CNN, the cell line in question is thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue and was used because it is "A well-studied industry standard for safe and reliable production of viral vector vaccines."

However, these considerations didn't appear to make these religious leaders any more comfortable with the vaccine.

According to CNN, he received a COVID-19 vaccine in January and gave his assent to a note stating, "The use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive."

The Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has also released a statement saying, "It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process."

As their statement obtained by NPR said, vaccination "ought to be understood as an act of charity toward the other members of our community. In this way, being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good."

According to CNN, this was also the position taken by Bishop Michael Duca of the Baton Rouge Diocese, who said Catholics should feel free to take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if it is the only one available despite his archdiocese referring to it as "morally compromised."

As they told CNN, they emphasized that the vaccine does not contain any fetal tissue, saying, "We are able to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses using our engineered cell-line system and look forward to delivering those doses around the world and help meet the critical need."

Indeed, we've established above how far removed this cell line now is from the original fetal tissue from 1985.

As NPR reported, these vaccines employed similar cell lines derived from fetal tissue to test how effective they are, but the cell lines were not used in their actual development.

For the bishops behind the statement, this makes these vaccines' connection to abortion more remote and thus, the vaccines themselves more acceptable.

According to NPR, this is because vaccination centers will only be able to offer whichever one they have access to. And as CNN reported, they're also more likely to offer whichever vaccine they have more doses of in a given day as supplies change from week to week.

As Dr. Jeff Carson from Rutgers Biomedical said, "My advice to all my patients and to all my friends will be to get the first vaccine you can get. That's what matters the most -- to get protected."

h/t: CNN, NPR