We receive a lot of questions about whether vaccines, and many other pharmaceuticals, are produced without any connection to abortion. Ever since the early 2000s, when Children of God for Life founder, Mrs. Debra Vinnedge, asked the Vatican for clarification and guidance, the issue has been confusing. (You can read her letter and the Pontifical Academy for Life’s response here.) With COVID-19 vaccines, the issue has only gotten more complex.

Brief History

Originally the concern was about childhood vaccines. Attenuated (weakened) viruses were grown in fetal cell lines derived from aborted children. When these viruses are purified from the cells, the final product can contain cellular components from those cells (such as DNA).

COVID-19 vaccines are different. Since the spike protein on the SARS-CoV2 virus is the part that binds with immune cells, the new vaccines either are synthesized mRNA molecules (instructions) or genetically engineered forms of the virus. The mRNA vaccines are instructions that make the spike protein in the body so that the immune system builds antibodies to it. The antibodies are supposed to respond to actual spike proteins on a coronavirus if it enters the body. These are the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, and they were both tested in aborted fetal cells in clinical trials. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is an adenovirus-vector-based vaccine (the genetically engineered form of the virus), and it is produced in aborted fetal cells, much like traditional vaccines.

The question arose about the difference in testing and production. Catholic organizations such as the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) and the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) hold that testing is one-time or too remote to affect the ethical status of the pharmaceutical. CLI categorizes vaccines that are tested in aborted fetal cells “ethically uncontroversial,” such as Moderna and Pfizer. NCBC, following CLI, categorizes these vaccines as preferable because, in their judgement, the manufacturing process uses aborted fetal cells “at one point in development.” We argue otherwise, that testing and production are ethically equal since testing is an ongoing part of the development and production process for a new product in a quickly changing response to a pandemic.

The answer ultimately is left to the prudential judgement of the individual. As we say on our COVID-19 Guidance page: “We are obliged, then, to avoid using vaccines that rely on aborted fetal cell lines unless we are in grave danger. The Church says we have a ‘moral duty’ to avoid cooperation in evil, however remote, as the default condition. It is only morally permissible to get the vaccine if you need it. Either way, we are all also supposed to work to change the culture that got us backed into this corner.”

See our Vaccine Overview page for more detailed information.

Terms and Definitions

Many people contact us who are 110% willing to work to change the culture, and they reasonably want to know how to tell if a vaccine is ethically untainted or not so they can avoid those vaccines that are tainted. At the extreme, we could say that anything we touch in this fallen world can be linked, however remotely, to sin. But that is not helpful. We offer these distinctions for the purpose of clarifying the terms as we are using them at Children of God for Life. These are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, my go-to source for the English language.

Research is “the systematic investigation or inquiry aimed at contributing to knowledge of a theory, topic, etc., by careful consideration, observation, or study of a subject.”

Development is “the action or process of designing and bringing to fruition a new product or technology, typically after the implementation of alterations to the original concept following testing or consultation.” Especially in industry, development refers to “work directed on a large scale towards the innovation, introduction, and improvement of products and processes.”

Research and Development (R&D) refers to the flow of these two processes, continuously, by the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, data collection, analysis, and conclusion. Questions are systematically investigated for the purpose of designing and bringing to fruition a new product.

Early in the pandemic, there were other interpretations. We disagreed with the portrayal of testing as a one-time, separate step in the process because both Jose and I have worked in R&D fields, me as a senior research chemist and Jose as a chief product officer in a financial industry. We were quite shocked by the statements from Catholic organizations that portrayed testing as something that happened once outside the development process. Testing is an integral and essential part of R&D. Whether the product is medicines, software, jet engines, or chocolate chip cookies, testing is an essential part of the continuous R&D process. Without tests, how is a company supposed to know what its product can do?

The scientific method is not a beginning to end trajectory; it is a cycle. In an industry research setting, R&D continues even after a new product is brought to market at least until the product is established. In the situation of the pandemic with the launch of such new vaccines under emergency use authorization —knowing the virus would have variants — pharmaceutical companies were a long way from a final product, and everyone knew it.

For example, Moderna announced a plan for pre-clinical trials on new mRNA vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 variants at its manufacturing facility in Norwood, MA, a $130M investment employing 230+ employees. Testing in aborted fetal cell lines takes place in the in vitro (in the lab) first phase of pre-clinical trials. They are planning for ongoing R&D.

Testing in science involves chemistry. It is to study a substance’s composition, structure, and properties at its atomic level. It is “the action or process of examining a substance under known conditions in order to determine its identity or that of one of its constituents.” In mechanics, testing is also “the action by which the physical properties of substances, materials, machines, etc. are tested, in order to determine their ability to satisfy particular requirements.” R&D always involves testing. Testing is as inherent to the research and development process as it is to the scientific method. It is impossible to do research or development for new products without conducting tests. Again, to emphasize an important point, testing can never be one-time or separated from research and development for new products.

Production is “the action or an act of producing, making, or causing anything; generation or creation of something; the fact or condition of being produced.” It is “the action or process of making goods from components or raw materials; the manufacture of goods for sale and consumption.” Production is a separate process from R&D, but R&D do not end when production begins. They occur simultaneously. A product may reach a point in its lifecycle where it is established and no more research needs to be done to develop new variations, such as for aspirin, but it would be unreasonable to assume a new product in the market ceased to have any ongoing R&D associated with it.

The ”But For” Distinction

When the COVID-19 vaccines emerged, the question arose about the connection between testing and production. As already explained, some ethicists understood, albeit incorrectly, that testing is separate from research and production for new products. For new products, this is not the case. For established products that have been in the market for a long time (years, decades), there can be research teams who use the product and test it completely independently of the development process. Sometimes this is done to understand how a pharmaceutical functions in specific or new uses.

Most notably, Fr. Matthew Schneider, using a literature search performed by Dr. Lisa Gilbert, MD, wrote an article on his blog, “If Any Drug Tested on HEK-293 Is Immoral, Goodbye Modern Medicine.” Dr. Gilbert told Fr. Schneider, “I believe all the Top Twenty medications prescribed in the US are tested on HEK293.” And she added, “Every medication I’ve researched so far appears to have some connection to HEK.” This single article led to much devastation in the lives of people trying to navigate the pandemic and provide for their families. Employers began coercing them to be vaccinated against their conscience, telling employees that “if they had every used aspirin (for example), they had no right to claim a conscience exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine.” But we, at Children of God for Life, see a difference in new products that would not be in the market “but for” the use of aborted children vs. products that were in the market and later tested by researchers unaffiliated with the company who developed the original product, aspirin in this case. Such testing is inconsequential to bringing the product to the market. We have tried to clarify meaningful distinctions to assist these families in their prudential judgement.

Examples demonstrate this “but for” distinction best.

Example 1: Acetylsalicylic Acid (Aspirin)

Aspirin was first discovered in 1853. A U.S. patent was awarded to Bayer in 1900. By comparison, HEK-293 was first available to researchers in 1977, long after aspirin was in the market. Aspirin’s development could not have depended on the use of HEK-293. As the Wikipedia summary for aspirin shows, there are many different uses that have been studied since then. The research article provided by Fr. Schneider and Dr. Gilbert describe a study done in 2014 to better understand how aspirin helps back pain. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Heidelberg.

Example 2: Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine

In September 2020, researchers explained that they used HEK-293 in a neutralization assay to detect the presence of antibodies in the cells, a test to make sure the vaccine works as it should (i.e. make the spike protein so the cells would produce antibodies to the spike protein). Researchers transfected HEK-293 cells to test expression. That means they added the vaccine during development to the cells to see if they produced the protein and antibodies as expected. This is the in vitro (in the lab) mRNA expression test. Pfizer’s U.S. patent describes how they made RNA molecules encoding fusion proteins (like the spike protein) and tested them using HEK-293 cells in development.

We would say that aspirin did not depend on aborted children to get to market, while Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine did; they would not be in the market “but for” the use of aborted children.

Obviously, there are gray areas. Does this mean that a person should reject aspirin, for example, for the specific use of back pain because aspirin would not be used for back pain “but for” aborted fetal cells? We would say no. That use of aspirin, which was by then an over-the-counter drug, does not pass the “but for” distinction. People were using aspirin for back pain long before an independent research team at a university decided to do tests to understand the mechanism of action. Furthermore, it would be a difficult, if not impossible, task to find every test ever done in the scientific literature where a research team used a product already in the market as a component of their experimental design.

We are making a “but for” distinction to clarify information and the way we are using our terms. We are not at odds with CLI or NCBC, but we differ in our analysis. Nevertheless, all of us are united with the Catholic Church in saying that this is a matter of prudential judgement and conscience. As our COVID-19 Guidance page says, “Each person/family must make a prudential decision with an informed conscience and do what is best for you, your family, and your community.”

And ultimately, we have said many times, list-making is a futile effort. We could spend the rest of our lives tracking down every detail of every pharmaceutical or any other product, but where would that leave us? Such a trajectory would leave us without impact or result on the practice we are protesting. We are actively moving the conversation away from products to practice, away from making an ever-growing list of ethical vs. unethical products to a broader discussion of how to end the practice of using aborted children in research in the first place. For more information, see our Annual Report.

We hope you find these clarifications helpful.