The Vatican says that it’s “morally acceptable” to receive COVID-19 vaccine developed using cell lines derived from aborted foetuses.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office charged with promoting and defending church morals and traditions, said in a document released last Monday that “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available, it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted foetuses in their research and production process.”

Pope Francis has approved the text, “all vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive. It should be emphasized, however, that the morally licit use of these types of vaccines, in the particular conditions that make it so, does not in itself constitute a legitimation, even indirect, of the practice of abortion, and necessarily assumes the opposition to this practice by those who make use of these vaccines.”

According to Science magazine, cells derived from elective abortions have been used in the manufacture of vaccines since the 1960s including current vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles. They have also been used to make approved drugs against diseases including haemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis, and cystic fibrosis.