Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood clinic director who has become a pro-life advocate, is condemning U.S. Catholic bishops for justifying the taking of vaccines for COVID-10 because they are only “remotely” connected to the use of cell lines of aborted infants.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said the “sufficiently serious” conditions of the pandemic allow Catholics to take the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, but they should avoid the “morally compromised” AstraZeneca vaccine “due to its use of aborted baby cells.”
“In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines,” said HSCCB chairmen Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas in a document released Monday.
The bishops noted that “while neither vaccine is completely free from any connection to morally compromised cell lines, in this case the connection is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion.”
The AstraZeneca vaccine, however, is “more morally compromised” and thus “should be avoided,” the bishops said.
LifeSiteNews reported Johnson, whose story was portrayed in the movie “Unplanned,” criticized the bishops for “cowering to Big Pharma.”
“I have a real problem with the USCCB coming out and saying that that, you know, there is a distant connection between abortion and some of these vaccines that we are injecting into our bodies, as if that makes the abortion acceptable,” said Johnson.
She accused the church leaders of saying, “well, abortion is evil and we should not compromise with evil, but I guess it’s okay in this situation.”
She said the bishops should have long ago taken an unequivocal stand.
Drug companies haven’t stopped using aborted fetal cell lines in vaccine development, she explained, “because the leadership of the Catholic Church is too cowardly to stand up and say no more.”
“And I am so sick of the USCCB cowering to Big Pharma, cowering to liberals, and allowing us and allowing our children to be guinea pigs, and to … allow our children to be injected with these vaccines that have dead children in them,” she said.
She said that as long as church leaders fall into line “like a bunch of sheep,” the industry will continue doing what it wants.
“And they will continue to use aborted fetal tissue in testing and production because we don’t have a voice,” she said.
She said the matter isn’t cloudy.
“If abortion was used in any part of the manufacturing or production of this vaccine, the Catholic Church, especially in all Christians, should be saying, no, we don’t want any part of it,” Johnson said.
The USCCB noted that the Pfizer and Moderna products weren’t produced using fetal cell lines but were tested on a “compromised” cell line.
She had advice for church members.
“Catholics, you know better and you know what the Magisterium of the Catholic Church says, and it says that we should never cooperate with evil, we should never cooperate with abortion.”
Via Wnd