I am so grateful to have been part of the first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations in Marquette County! I am sure you think that is because I am over 65 years of age and thus, more vulnerable to this virus. While that is true, and I am also happy to do my part to help our country achieve herd immunity, I do have another important reason.

I was able to be inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine, which along with the one by Moderna, is morally permissible for Catholics to receive. Neither of these vaccines was designed, developed, or produced using cell lines from aborted babies. Although both companies used abortion-derived cell lines in the confirmatory testing phase, that connection to abortion, while still troubling, was very remote.

However, the vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca used cell lines that originated from tissue taken from aborted babies in the design, development, production and confirmatory testing stages and, as such, they are more morally problematic.

For those seeking additional information, the Catholic bishops of Michigan recently released a revised statement addressing the moral considerations regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, which can be found online at: micatholic.org/advocacy/news-room/news.

If anyone who is pro-life has a choice in what vaccine they can receive, I encourage them to choose the one produced by either Pfizer or Moderna. However, if people do not have a choice of a vaccine, it is still morally permissible to receive the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccine.

I also encourage people to write to vaccine-producing companies that use abortion-derived cell lines in their pharmaceutical work and ask them to switch to alternative cell sources in the future.

These aborted babies were not respected in their life. Let us at least respect their remains.