Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has renewed a national debate over religious conscience, vaccination policy, and the use of abortion-derived cell lines in vaccine production after publicly challenging Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
According to LifeSiteNews, Kennedy responded after Shapiro accused him of promoting conspiracy theories regarding the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and religious objections some Americans have to receiving it.
Kennedy said Shapiro had disputed his description of the vaccine during an earlier telephone conversation, telling him, “There is no fetal tissue in the MMR.”
Kennedy countered by pointing specifically to the production of the rubella component of Merck’s M-M-R II vaccine.
“The rubella virus used in MMR-II is grown on the cultured cell line composed of lung tissue from an aborted three-month-old female embryo,” Kennedy said, according to LifeSiteNews. He identified the cell line as WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration identifies M-M-R II as Merck’s licensed vaccine for immunization against measles, mumps, and rubella and provides the vaccine’s current package information.
Kennedy also asserted that “approximately 646 billion pieces” of DNA derived from an abortion-origin cell line are present in each vial of M-M-R II. He further stated, “In addition to the human DNA, there is also an unspecified amount of human cellular debris in each dose of MMR-II,” according to LifeSiteNews.
As part of his response, Kennedy highlighted a 2018 deposition involving vaccine researcher Stanley Plotkin. LifeSiteNews reported that Kennedy cited Plotkin’s testimony concerning fetal tissue used in research connected with vaccine development.
Plotkin also acknowledged during the deposition that he knew some people objected morally to vaccines associated with abortion-derived tissue.
“I’m aware of those objections,” Plotkin said. He then referenced Catholic teaching on the issue, saying, “The Catholic Church has actually issued a document on that which says that individuals who need the vaccines should receive the vaccines regardless of the fact.”
For Catholics, however, the Church’s actual moral teaching contains an important distinction.
The Church unequivocally rejects abortion and has repeatedly called for ethically acceptable alternatives to medical products developed using cell lines originating from abortions. At the same time, Catholic teaching distinguishes between those responsible for an abortion or the decision to use illicit biological material and patients who, many years later, receive a vaccine developed using such cell lines.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained in its instruction Dignitas Personae that “there exist differing degrees of responsibility” when biological material of illicit origin is used. The document specifically stated that serious threats to children’s health could justify parents using such a vaccine while continuing to object and asking health systems to provide ethically acceptable alternatives.
The Vatican reiterated that distinction in its 2020 guidance concerning COVID-19 vaccines. It said that when ethically irreproachable alternatives are unavailable, receiving vaccines developed using abortion-derived cell lines can be morally permissible because the recipient’s cooperation with the original abortion is remote. The same document stressed that such use does not constitute moral approval of abortion.
The Church has also called upon pharmaceutical companies and government authorities to develop and provide vaccines without ethical concerns so that Catholics and others are not forced into conflicts of conscience.
The dispute between Kennedy and Shapiro extended beyond the origins of vaccine cell lines. According to LifeSiteNews, Kennedy said Shapiro accused him of spreading vaccine misinformation and blamed him for declining vaccination rates in Pennsylvania. Kennedy rejected those accusations and argued that public confidence had already been damaged during the COVID era.
“The Trump administration is working to restore public trust not by gaslighting or manipulating, but by being truthful, at last, with the public,” Kennedy said.
For Catholics, the controversy touches two principles the Church has long sought to hold together: an uncompromising defense of the dignity of human life from conception and a careful moral evaluation of an individual’s responsibility when medical products have a remote historical connection to abortion.
Catholics may legitimately object to the use of abortion-derived cell lines and advocate strongly for ethical alternatives. At the same time, the Church has taught that receiving certain vaccines associated with such cell lines does not necessarily constitute cooperation with the abortion from which the original biological material was obtained.
As the debate over vaccination policy and religious exemptions continues, the controversy underscores why accurate information about how vaccines are developed — and respect for legitimate questions of conscience — remain particularly important for Catholic families.
