On December 11, 2020, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a memorandum addressing the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccinations, stating that the reasons to accept the vaccinations are “sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines. In addition, receiving the COVID-19 vaccine ought to be understood as an act of charity toward the other members of our community.
In this way, being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good.” Further, the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities states, “neither Pfizer nor Moderna used an abortion-derived cell line in the development or production of the vaccine. However, such a cell line was used to test the efficacy of both vaccines. Thus, while neither vaccine is completely free from any use of abortion-derived cell lines, in these two cases the use is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion…one may receive any of the clinically recommended vaccines in good conscience with the assurance that reception of such vaccines does not involve immoral cooperation in abortion.”
In response to the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement on March 2, 2021, stating “if one can choose among equally safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccine with the least connection to abortion-derived cell lines should be chosen…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.”