The Archdiocese of New Orleans (USA) said Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine was a “moral compromise” and advised Catholics to use ethical alternatives, if available.
The new vaccine, manufactured by Janssen, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine division, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with an emergency use permit issued on Saturday, February 27th.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List pro-life group, determined that the vaccine in question used abortion-derived cell lines in design and development, production, and laboratory testing.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans said on February 26 that the vaccine was a “moral compromise” because of its connection to 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 there is no ethical alternative available, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has indicated that it does not prohibit Catholics from receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The decision to receive a vaccine for COVID-19 “remains a decision of individual conscience when consulting with the health care provider,” the Archdiocese said.
“The Archdiocese of New Orleans, in light of Vatican guidance, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic National Center for Bioethics, says that although there have been some laboratory tests that have used the abortion-derived cell line, the two vaccines currently available at Pfizer and Moderna are not based on abortion cell lines in the manufacturing process and therefore may be morally acceptable to Catholics because the connection to abortion is extremely distant, ”your statement reads.
Ethicists noted that both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were “ethically indisputable” because their connection to design abortions was extremely distant. However, some laboratory tests for vaccines have been performed using aborted fetal cell lines.
Meanwhile, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine used aborted fetal cell lines at all stages.
“Under the same guidance, the archdiocese must instruct Catholics that the latest Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a moral compromise because it uses the abortion-derived cell line in vaccine development and production, as well as in evidence,” the archdiocese said.
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 wrong behavior of those who have decided to use abortion cell lines to make vaccines.”
“In doing so, we advise that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive any of these vaccines rather than receive the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines.” stressed the. .
The cell line derived from a decades-old abortion, called HEK-293, is commonly used in pharmaceutical testing and development.
The Archdiocesan Declaration agrees with the text of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled “Note on the Morality of the Use of Vaccines Against COVID-19”, of December 21, 2020.
This document explains that “when ethically sound 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 conditions of storage and transport, or when several types of vaccine are distributed in the same country, but citizens are not allowed to choose the vaccine to be inoculated) it is morally acceptable to use COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process”.
The document explains that “the fundamental reason for considering the use of these vaccines legal is that the type of harmless cooperation (passive material cooperation) of induced abortion from which the same cell lines come, by those who use the resulting vaccines, is removed.”
Thus, “the moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory, if any a serious danger, such as the otherwise unstoppable spread of a serious pathogen: in this case, the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic that causes Covid-19 ”.
One of the sustained advantages of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is that it does not require specialized refrigeration and can be administered in a single dose, making it more attractive to some healthcare professionals than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. These vaccines require frozen storage and are given in two doses.
Translation and adaptation by Diego López Marina. Originally posted on CNA.