Polish bishops express “serious moral objection” to AstraZeneca and J&J Covid vaccines

The Catholic church in Poland has expressed “serious moral objection” to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines, due to the fact that they were produced using material derived from aborted foetuses.

It has called on the faithful to avoid using those vaccines if possible, but says that they can be taken if no other choice is available.

“The production of AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson vaccines uses cell lines created from biological material collected from aborted foetuses,” wrote the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland.

“This fact raises a serious moral objection,” said Józef Wróbel, the auxiliary bishop of Lublin and chairman of KEP’s bioethics committee. “Catholics should not consent to vaccination with these vaccines.”

By contrast, noted the statement, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “do not raise serious ethical contraindications” because their production process does not use such cell lines.

Catholics should therefore seek to use these vaccines. However, “the faithful who do not have the option of choosing a different vaccine and are obliged by existential or professional circumstances to use them [AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson], can do so without moral fault” due to the “obligation to protect the life and health of others”, added Wróbel.

“Such persons should, however, manifest their firm objection to the use of biological material of immoral origins in the production of this vaccine in order not to be considered indirectly supportive of abortion,” advised the bishop.

The position of the Polish bishops is similar to the one issued by their US counterparts last month, who said that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine “raises moral concerns”. It advised the faithful to choose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines where possible, but added that Johnson & Johnson is “morally acceptable” when others are not available.

In December, the Vatican announced that, because the pandemic represents such a serious threat, such vaccines “can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that [it] does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive”.

Poland has so far carried out vaccinations using the Pfizer, Modern and AstraZeneca vaccines. The first delivery of Johnson & Johnson vaccines arrived in the country this morning, reports TVN24. However, their use is likely to be delayed following concerns in the US over cases of blood clots.

As of this morning, Poland had so far administered almost 8 million vaccines in total, including over 2.1 million second doses. By 12 April, 15% of the country’s population had received at least one dose, near the EU average of 15.7% but well below the 36.1% in the US, 47.4% in the UK and 61.6% in Israel.

Last week, the Polish government announced plans to accelerate its vaccine rollout. This included expanding the number of professional groups allowed to administer jabs and creating more vaccination points.

Main image credit: EpiskopatNews/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.