Judge Clarence Thomas reiterated a misleading claim Thursday that COVID-19 vaccines were developed using cell lines from “aborted children.”
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold New York’s vaccine mandate for health care workers after petitioners challenged the mandate because of the lack of a religious exemption.
In his dissent, Thomas wrote that the petitioners — including 16 state health workers — “object on religious grounds to all available vaccines against COVID-19 because they are developed using cell lines obtained from aborted children.” citing petitioners’ complaint in its dissent.
While it is true that fetal cell lines are critical to testing the efficacy of vaccines against COVID-19, the fact is often misconstrued in disproved claims that recently aborted fetuses were used to create the vaccines or that the vaccines themselves contain aborted fetuses. cells.
The cell lines were actually grown in a lab by extracting cells from two elective abortions that took place several decades ago, according to a handout from the North Dakota Department of Health on the topic of vaccines and fetal cell lines. Specifically, the cells came from a kidney cell line isolated from a fetus in 1973 and a retinal cell line from an aborted fetus in 1985.
Elective means that the abortion was voluntary and not done solely for the purpose of developing a vaccine.
These cell lines are critical to the research and development of other more common forms of treatment, including ibuprofen, aspirin and cold medicines.
“Any vaccine that relies on these historic cell lines will not require or mandate new abortions,” according to the North Dakota Department of Health brochure. “Although fetal cell lines may be used to develop or manufacture vaccines against COVID-19, the vaccines themselves do not contain any aborted fetal cells.”
In its guidance, the North Dakota Department of Health wrote that the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life organization, found the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “ethically uncontroversial” and also cited the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops say that “a person can receive any of the clinically recommended vaccines in good conscience.”
Some supporters of Thomas argued that the justice was simply repeating claims made by health care workers, according to Politico.
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined Thomas in his dissent.
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