Catholics should choose COVID vaccines ‘least connected’ to abortion: Canadian bishops

Catholics who get vaccinated for COVID-19 should choose vaccines with “the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines,” Canada’s bishops said Tuesday, but that when choice is unavailable or difficult, alternatives “can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with abortion.”

In a statement titled Note on Ethical Concerns Related to Currently Approved COVID-19 Vaccines,  the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines approved in Canada “do not use abortion-derived cell lines in their development and production of the vaccine.” 

Although the vaccines have used “unethically-derived cell lines,” they “can be morally acceptable for Catholics to receive since the connection to abortion is extremely remote.”

The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are more problematic because they “utilized abortion-derived cell lines in their development, production, and confirmatory testing,” the CCCB said.

“Therefore, when provided with a choice between receiving different vaccines, the vaccine with the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines should always be preferred and chosen when possible.”

When no choice is available or it is “quite difficult to have recourse” to the preferred vaccines, the bishops said, “given the health urgency at hand and other considerations, nothing morally prevents anyone from receiving in good conscience the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines or others that may eventually be approved which will have been developed, tested and produced in a similar fashion.”

As for the question of whether to get vaccinated, the decision is “one of individual conscience in consultation with one’s physician or health-care provider,” said the bishops, and “can be an act of charity which recognizes the need to care for others.”

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has distinguished “differing moral obligations for those who develop such vaccines and those who receive them,” said the CCCB. Echoing the position of the Vatican, the bishops appealed to governments to “ensure that COVID-19 vaccines that become available do not create an ethical dilemma for Canadians,” thus discouraging vaccinations among the Canadian population.

Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller told The B.C. Catholic last week that he expects to roll up his sleeve and get vaccinated when his age category comes up and that, given a choice, he would avoid the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its closer connection with abortion. But he conceded it’s unlikely Canadians will have a choice of vaccines.

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