The Archdiocese of New Orleans is instructing all Catholics that the latest Johnson & Johnson vaccine is "morally compromised as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as the testing."
That's according to a statement released last week.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is the third vaccine approved to be used in the United States, is the only vaccine that is one-dose and was approved by the FDA over the weekend.
LINK TO FULL STATEMENT: https://nolacatholic.org/news/a-statement-regarding-the-janssen-johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine
The archdiocese does mention that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines do not rely on cell lines from abortions in the manufacturing process.
The guidance from the archdiocese could push people off in New Orleans and the state from taking the COVID vaccination once it is available for distribution. To date, the United States has surpassed 500,000 in deaths from the virus, according to the latest figures from the CDC.
"The Archdiocese of New Orleans, in light of guidance from the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and The National Catholic Bioethics Center affirm that though there was some lab testing that utilized the abortion-derived cell line, the two vaccines currently available from Pfizer and Moderna do not rely on cell lines from abortions in the manufacturing process and therefore can be morally acceptable for Catholics as the connection to abortion is extremely remote," the statement says.
The archdiocese writes that "In doing so, we advise that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available, Catholics should choose to receive either of those vaccines rather than to receive the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of its extensive use of abortion-derived cell lines."
However, the Vatican came out with a note on the morality of using some anti-COVID-19 vaccines: "In this sense, when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available (e.g. in countries where vaccines without ethical problems are not made available to physicians and patients, or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transport conditions, or when various types of vaccines are distributed in the same country but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated) it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process."