The Archdiocese of New Orleans (United States) noted that Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine is “morally compromised” and advised Catholics to use ethical alternatives when available.
The new vaccine, manufactured by Janssen, the vaccine division of Johnson & Johnson, was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday, February 27, with an emergency clearance.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, found that the vaccine in question used abortion-derived cell lines in design and development, manufacturing, and laboratory testing.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans declared on Feb. 26 that the vaccine was “morally compromised” because of its link with abortion.
However, he said the other two vaccines available for COVID-19 are “morally acceptable,” referring to those from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.
Faced with the possibility that no ethical alternative is available, the Archdiocese of New Orleans indicated that it does not prohibit Catholics from getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The decision to receive a COVID-19 vaccine “remains a decision of the individual conscience in consultation with the health care provider,” the archdiocese said.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans, in light of the Vatican’s guidelines, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States, and the National Catholic Center for Bioethics state that while there were some laboratory tests using the abortion-derived cell line, the two currently available vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are not based on abortion lines in the manufacturing process and may therefore be morally acceptable to Catholics as the link with abortion is extremely distant, ”your statement reads.
Ethicists noted that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were “ethically indisputable,” as their link to abortions was extremely remote at the design stage. However, some laboratory tests for the vaccines have been performed with degraded fetal cell lines.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meanwhile, used degraded fetal cell lines at all stages.
“It is under the same guidance that the Archdiocese must instruct Catholics that the latest Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is morally compromised, as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in the development and production of the vaccine, as well as in the evidence. ‘said the archdiocese.
This ethical issue is similar to that of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which also used an abortion-derived cell line in the development and testing of its product.
The Archdiocese stressed that “the position of the Church in no way diminishes the wrongdoing of those who decided to use abortion lines to make vaccines.”
In addition, we recommend that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive one of these vaccines rather than the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to the extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines, he emphasized. .
The cell line derived from decades-old abortion, called HEK-293, is often used in pharmaceutical testing and development.
The Archdiocese’s statement is consistent with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith text entitled “Note on the Morality of the Use of Some COVID-19 Vaccines”, dated December 21, 2020.
This document explains that “when ethically impeccable COVID-19 vaccines are not available (for example, in countries where vaccines are not made available to physicians and patients without ethical concerns or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transportation conditions, or when different types of vaccines are distributed in the same country, but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose which vaccine to vaccinate) it is morally acceptable to use COVID-19 vaccines that have utilized cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and manufacturing process
The document explains that “the fundamental reason for considering the use of these vaccines morally lawful is that the kind of cooperation with the evil (passive material cooperation) of the induced abortion that these same cell lines come from, by those who receive the resulting vaccines. is remote ”.
So “the moral obligation to avoid such passive material cooperation is not binding if there is one a serious hazard, such as the otherwise unstoppable spread of a serious pathogen: in this case the pandemic spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 ”.
One of the touted benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is that it does not require specialized refrigeration and can be delivered in a single dose, making it more appealing to some healthcare professionals than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. These vaccines must be stored frozen and are administered in two doses.
Translated and adapted by Diego López Marina. Originally posted on CNA