The Vatican is giving the go-ahead on receiving COVID-19 vaccines that used cell lines from aborted fetuses.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote in a statement published on Monday, “It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.” Pope Francis approved the note on Dec. 17.
The statement comes after questions about getting a coronavirus vaccine and if it is ethically acceptable.
According to Science Magazine, “Cells derived from elective abortions have been used since the 1960s to manufacture vaccines, including current vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles.” As CNN reports, the cells are engineered in labs from tissue obtained decades ago and not directly used from aborted fetuses for vaccines.
“All vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that 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 statement reads.
The Vatican also declared that “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available,” it is “morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”
The statement also reads:
“The morally licit use of these types of vaccines, in the particular conditions that make it so, does not in itself constitute a legitimation, even indirect, of the practice of abortion, and necessarily assumes the opposition to this practice by those who make use of these vaccines.”
The Vatican did not specifically list the name of any COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Additionally, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement on Dec. 14, stating, “In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines.”
The statement continues, “Receiving one of the COVID-19 vaccines 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.”
