Despite the public health benefits associated with the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 infection, the production and distribution of certain COVID-19 vaccines has been met with some controversy. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) announced that all of the current vaccines are morally permissible to receive. However, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in particular has raised concerns given the use of cell lines created from aborted fetuses in its production.
The conversation surrounding vaccines made with cell lines connected to abortion is not a new one. In 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life released a document titled “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses” discussing the use of vaccines against rubella and some other diseases that use cell lines prepared from tissues of fetuses aborted in 1964 and 1970.
In this document, the Academy explains the distinction between formal and material cooperation with evil. Formal cooperation “is carried out when the moral agent cooperates with the immoral action of another person, sharing in the latter’s evil intention,” whereas material cooperation does not involve one’s sharing in another’s evil intention. Formal cooperation is always morally illicit due to its “direct and intentional participation in the sinful action of another person.”
Material cooperation, on the other hand, may or may not be morally illicit. Material cooperation can be either immediate or mediate (i.e. direct or indirect), as well as either proximate or remote. Cooperation in evil is immediate if it involves the execution of the sinful act itself or if it involves “providing instruments or products … which make it possible to commit the immoral act.” The cooperation is either proximate or remote based on how ‘close’ one is to the evil act either in time or material connection.
In the case of manufacturers that create vaccines with biological material originating from voluntarily aborted fetuses, the Academy determined their material cooperation morally illicit because it may encourage the performance of other voluntary abortions for the purpose of vaccine production.
Those who receive such vaccines engage in “a form of very remote mediate material cooperation.” The Academy states that when there are no alternative ethical vaccines available, abstaining from morally questionable vaccines is correct “if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health.” This remote cooperation is tolerable when a “grave inconvenience” exists due to a disease’s spread, but consumers have a moral duty to voice the need for the production of ethical alternatives so this remote cooperation can be eliminated.
In their 2008 instruction titled Dignitas Personae, the CDF reiterated this position, explaining that illicitly originated vaccines are permissible to prevent danger to one’s health, while simultaneously stating that “everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system makes other types of vaccines available.”
The CDF also released a “Note on the morality of using some anti-COVID-19 vaccines” on December 21, 2020, drawing from the “Moral Reflections” and Dignitas Personae to clarify that in the absence of “ethically irreprochable” COVID-19 vaccines, cases where distribution is more difficult due to “special storage and transport conditions,” or cases where a citizen cannot choose the vaccine they wish to take, “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”
As for the vaccines currently available in the U.S., Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, released a statement on March 2 in regards to the approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. While “Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines raised concerns because an abortion-derived cell line was used for testing them, but not in their production,” Johnson & Johnson’s raised “additional moral concerns” because illicit cell lines were also used in its development and production.
Bishop Rhoades and Archbishop Naumann concluded, “While we should continue to insist that pharmaceutical companies stop using abortion-derived cell lines, given the world-wide suffering that this pandemic is causing, we affirm again that being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good.”
Adam is a senior from Columbus, Ohio. He previously served as Campus News and Culture Editor, and boasts the title of least cultured to ever serve as the latter. Holding a minor in Biology, he recently converted from STEM and now majors in Philosophy and Classical Studies. He currently leads Una Voce, the Latin Mass society at BC, and sings with the University Chorale of Boston College and the Chorale Chamber Singers. He enjoys Gregorian Chant, relearning the clarinet, and is an unabashed Ohio apologist.
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