Catholic Church shifts view on use of aborted foetus cells in Covid-19 vaccine

Sep 28, 2020 by

by Will Maule, Premier:

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has released a statement appearing to pledge their support for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, even if it utilises cell-lines originally extracted from a human foetus. While some vaccine development projects are using synthetic cell lines, others, such as the one currently being undertaken at Oxford University, use cell-lines from a human foetus, prompting questions over ethics.

In a new statement, the Bishops’ Conference said that, given the widespread threat to life caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there may be “grave reasons” for using a vaccine “which is developed from cell-lines associated with the unethical exploitation of the human remains of an aborted child in the past”.

The Bishops’ Conference also said that they had been reassured by the Department for Health that “no new human foetal tissue will be used in making the vaccine” and that “cell-lines developed from the remains of aborted foetuses in the past are being researched by some institutions”.

As a result of the ethical complexities involved in the vaccine development, the Catholic Church commissioned the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Dignitatis personae (2008) and the Pontifical Academy for Life to investigate. The CDF subsequently concluded that there are “‘differing degrees of responsibility’ for those who use the human ‘biological material’ of illicit origin” and that Catholics must “differentiate between those who use tissue directly from an abortion, researchers who use derived material, and those who may benefit from a vaccine produced from such material”.

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