Polish Catholic Church Says Adenovirus COVID Vaccine Production 'Raises Moral Objections'

WARSAW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th April, 2021) Poland's Catholic Church believes that the production of coronavirus vaccines based on adenoviral vectors, such as those developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, violates moral principles as they use aborted fetal cell lines, the Secretariat of the Polish Bishops' Conference said on Wednesday, citing Bishop Jozef Wrobel SCJ.

Poland is known for its strict position on abortions. In January, the country's conservative government enforced a controversial near-total ban on abortions despite months-long protests � the most sweeping in Poland's post-communist history. The decision sparked international outrage, with international human rights organizations and the European Union's governance bodies demanding the law be rescinded.

"Bishop Wróbel noted that unlike the first vaccines [against COVID-19], which use mRNA-based technology and do not raise significant moral objections, cell lines created from biological material taken from aborted fetuses are used in the production of the vaccines of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson," the press service said in a statement, noting that "this fact raises serious moral objections" and Catholics should not receive these vaccines.

According to the bishop, such vaccines can be used "without moral guilt" only if people have no other choice and are directly required to be inoculated under certain conditions, such as for work, as in this case, use of the vaccine does not imply direct participation in, acceptance of, or coercion to have abortion.

Fetal cells used in coronavirus vaccines are grown in a laboratory and do not contain any tissue from an original fetus. They descend from cells taken from elective abortions in the 1970s and 1980s, which have since multiplied into many new cells.

Earlier in the day, Poland's health ministry announced that it would not change its plans and would go ahead with the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine despite health concerns over rare cases of blood clots following inoculation.