The U.S. Confernece of Catholic Bishops cited the document in a March statement, writing that “Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines raised concerns because an abortion-derived cell line was used for testing them, but not in their production. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, however, was developed, tested and is produced with abortion-derived cell lines raising additional moral concerns.”
The US bishops said that “if one can choose among equally safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccine with the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines should be chosen. Therefore, if one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnson’s.”
Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, the NCBC’s director of education, explained in a March 4 interview with EWTN’s The World Over that many people might have sound reasons to receive a vaccine with a greater connection to the controversial cell lines. They might not have the ability to choose a vaccine, he said, or they might be allergic to ingredients in another certain vaccine.
“Certainly if all things are equal – if you have equal accessibility, equal efficacy between different vaccine candidates, and other details are largely the same,” he said, “you would want to look at using the one [vaccine] that is least associated with cell lines from abortions.”
He added that “[vaccine] accessibility is a big deal, and you can’t get all three of these vaccines, or even more than one, in many locations.” Furthermore, with coronavirus variants spreading, “[t]hat means that vaccines are going to have to be tweaked and tuned, and it means that you are sometimes going to have choices where you’re going to realize that a better candidate will be the one that is associated with cell lines from abortions,” he said.
“So here, there’s a need, as always, to make a judgement of prudence around these questions.”
Kate Scanlon served as EWTN News Political Affairs Correspondent through August 2021.