Article: Coronavirus vaccines and Christian ethics

Immortal cell lines, global justice, 'co-operation with evil' and abortion

[Last updated May 2021]

In September 2020 it was estimated that researchers were testing 40 different coronavirus vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and at least 92 preclinical vaccines were under active investigation in laboratory experiments. In December 2020 the UK and USA regulatory authorities approved the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and mass immunisation campaigns commenced. Since then a number of vaccines have been officially approved and hundreds of millions of people have received a coronavirus vaccine.

From a Christian perspective, perhaps we should first pause here and give thanks that God has given us, here and now in the 21st century, the scientific knowledge, the human expertise and motivation and the financial resources to undertake this massive scientific enterprise for the good of humankind. There’s little doubt that the entire field of vaccine development has been transformed for good because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

How are vaccines being developed?

Different vaccines are being developed using a range of technological approaches. Some new-generation vaccines employ fragments of RNA or DNA which do not require the use of live cells in their production. However many of the vaccines in current development use live cells as an essential part of the development process. Several vaccines in current use, such as those for influenza and hepatitis B, are grown in non-human cell lines or chicken eggs. But human cell lines are thought to be especially useful when working with a new virus as they represent the closest analogue to what happens when the new virus meets the human body.

For many years biotechnologists have used what are known as ‘immortal cell lines’. These are cell cultures which continue to grow because the cells keep multiplying indefinitely. The advantage of these unusual cell lines is that they can be very precisely characterised and their properties remain constant over years or even decades. However some of the frequently used cell lines are associated with complex ethical questions because of where they came from. 

Where do cell lines come from?

One specific cell line called HEK-293 is widely used for vaccine development because it’s relatively easy to insert viral genes into the cells, which then produce large quantities of viral protein. The widely publicised Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine is being developed using HEK-293 cells, and several other manufacturers and research groups are using the same cell line. The same cells were employed in the testing of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The problem is that the cells were obtained from a human fetus (unborn baby) who was legally aborted in the Netherlands in 1973. Another manufacturer is developing a vaccine using a cell line PER.C6 which was also obtained from a fetus who was aborted in the 1980s.

How should Christians who wish to show respect for all human life before and after birth respond to this? How do we balance the large numbers of lives that would be saved by an effective vaccine against ethical concerns about how it has been developed?

person getting vaccinated
Photo by CDC on Pexels.com

Human volunteers and vaccine development

Before we look further at this difficult moral issue, I would like to draw attention to some of the other ethical issues which the race to develop coronavirus vaccines is raising. For instance, would it be ethical to infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus in order to test how effective a particular vaccine is? Although Covid-19 infection is generally mild in young healthy people, we have no knowledge about longer-term complications and we do know that in a small minority of young people very severe complications and death may occur. What level of risk should we allow a person to take for the good of others, even if they are fully informed and give voluntary and un-coerced consent? Another ethical dilemma is whether, once a safe and effective vaccine has been developed, vaccination should be made compulsory by law. Would it be right to insist that no child can go to school before they have received the vaccine, or that every health professional should be compulsorily vaccinated?

Global justice and the distribution of new vaccines

Perhaps the greatest and most challenging ethical issue coming down the line is how a successful vaccine can be made available across the world in a way that is just and equitable. At the moment rich countries are pouring billions of dollars of public money into the development and distribution of new vaccines. Now that several vaccines have been shown to be effective there are huge political pressures to ensure that they are available first to everyone in the countries that have paid for the research. Several countries, including the UK and USA, have put in advance orders for many more vaccine doses than could treat their entire population. But the inevitable result of this will be that billions of vulnerable people living in poor countries will miss out, leading to further avoidable deaths and economic misery.

If rich countries use all the available vaccine to protect only their own populations they will be extending the life of the pandemic everywhere. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  published a report which stated that, according to modelling from Northeastern University, if rich countries buy up the first 2 billion doses of vaccine instead of making sure they are distributed in proportion to the global population, then almost twice as many people could ultimately die from COVID-19.

At the turn of the century, Christian voices were at the centre of a global movement for justice, the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which fought for cancellation of billions of dollars of unjust debts in low-resource countries in Africa and elsewhere. Will Christian voices be raised to fight for global justice and generosity in vaccine distribution? Or will this become yet another example of rich world selfishness, greed and abuse of ‘widows, orphans and immigrants’.   

Vaccines and the problem of ‘cooperation with evil’

To return to the issue of vaccines developed from the cell-lines derived from an aborted fetus, I think it’s helpful to see this issue in the light of a wider category of moral dilemmas which Christians have struggled with for centuries. It’s often been called the question of ‘cooperation in evil’ or ‘cooperation with evil’. It’s a recognition that by our very engagement in human society, we cannot avoid some degree of cooperation or complicity with evil, in a fallen world. Some of the money that I pay to the UK Government in taxes is used for purposes with which I profoundly disagree. By working as a doctor within the NHS I was inevitably co-operating to some degree with activities and decisions that raised ethical questions. Even Jesus himself by encouraging people to pay their taxes to Caesar, and the Apostle Paul by appealing to Caesar’s justice system, were in some sense cooperating with the very obvious evils of the Roman Empire.

Moral theologians who have wrestled with these problems have drawn distinctions between intentional and non-intentional cooperation, between active and passive cooperation and between proximate (or physically close) cooperation and remote cooperation. They have also stressed the importance of looking for alternatives to the evil and trying to balance the cooperation with evil against the morally good things that may result. Most thoughtful Christians have concluded that paying our taxes is a more ethical option than refusal to participate in society and going to prison(!) In this case the cooperation with evil is unintentional, distant and unavoidable.

Should we accept a vaccine that is ‘morally tainted’?

But how should we think about the vaccines for COVID-19? First, it makes a difference what role we play in the story. For instance, consider the ethical challenges for a Christian technologist working in a vaccine lab, or for a Christian pharmaceutical company executive making decisions about which vaccine candidates to invest in, or a Christian politician with responsibilities for public spending. Their ethical responsibilities are obviously different from those of a parent with young children or someone with vulnerable elderly relatives who has no connection with the healthcare world. Clearly if I have a chance to influence decisions for good and away from evil then I have a responsibility to do so. And if I can’t influence the decision then, for example as a Christian working in the biotech world, I may choose not to work on a particular cell line, and even resign my job out of conscience if I have no alternative.

But out of concern that I might pass on the infection to vulnerable people I may feel that it is better to receive protection from the virus even if the vaccine is ‘morally tainted’, because the alternative of not receiving any protection is worse. Of course, if there is a choice to have an alternative vaccine which is equally effective but which hasn’t been derived from a human fetal cell line, then this will be the preferable approach. And as a Christian community we can raise our voice with the Government to argue that alternative vaccines should be made available once they have been shown to be safe and effective. And we can support and pray particularly for Christian people in strategic positions in politics and healthcare who can influence decisions which impact millions of people.

The painful truth about abortion in 2020

But from a Christian ethical perspective I cannot avoid the elephant in the room (to use an over-worked metaphor). How can we as Christian people express righteous indignation about the use of tissue from a single tragic abortion 50 years ago, if we remain silent about the more than 200,000 abortions that are happening in the UK in 2021? Are we at risk of what Jesus described as ‘straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel’? The painful truth is that 1 in 3 women in our society will have an abortion in their lifetime and for every woman there is a man who is equally involved. And all the evidence suggests that thousands of Christian men and women are also involved, although this is a reality which is rarely acknowledged or spoken about. I am not writing this to make anyone feel judged or uncomfortable. The message of the Gospel of Christ is that we are all guilty in different ways, we are all broken by past histories of evil and failure. But there is open to each of us a pathway of repentance, healing and restoration. That’s the good news of grace and truth. As Jesus said to an anonymous woman surrounded by self-righteous accusers, ‘I don’t condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin’ (John 8:11).

A better way

If we are rightly concerned about cooperation with the evil of abortion, perhaps this is where we should start – supporting organisations such as Christian crisis pregnancy centres which are providing skilled counselling and non-judgemental support for women considering or affected by abortion, and backing those who are standing up for the rights of unborn children in the public square. Whenever as Christian people we say that something is wrong, we must immediately go on and say, “…and here is a better way”.

So, to conclude, we live in a complex, interconnected and fallen world and some kind of cooperation with evil is tragically unavoidable. But we can use our voices and our actions to stand up for justice and for compassion, to make a difference in our world and to protect those who have no voices, the most vulnerable human beings in our midst. 

Which vaccines have used what kind of cell lines?

For more detailed information about the involvement of cell lines derived from tissue from aborted fetuses in the dozens of vaccines in development, you can download this document produced by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Frequently Asked Questions

I have also put together a short article tackling some other questions and concerns people may have – you can read it here.

Note on comments

Although I welcome comments, questions and feedback, all comments are moderated and this website will not publish comments which promote scientifically false claims or highly implausible theories about Covid and its treatment. My goal for this website is to provide balanced, authoritative and scientifically credible information about Covid and to discuss the ethical implications. It is not intended to provide a forum for the ‘free exchange of ideas’, since there are many other platforms for this.

This Post Has 37 Comments

  1. Ivan Watson

    Thank you Professor Wyatt. I found that a really helpful overview of very relevant issues.

  2. Hyl

    There’s an additional problem to this, that the world is so focused on removing the’ virus that may actually be a blessing and not a curse. Nobody is meant to live forever, death is inevitable for everyone, but we, particularly in the west have been extending life and become obsessed with increased longevity. Age expectation is around 80 while in the developing world its nearer 60. There are more and more systems in place to increase the lifespan of the generations yet the genetic structure is programmed to decay. While we spend masses of money trying to extend the lives of the elderly, the developing world wants merely to feed their young. We need to embrace letting go, that is the Christian attitude to this world, and take hold of the next – this was the character of the apostles. With globalisation loving our neighbour is no longer limited to those in our community but those on the other side of the world, to love them, and their children, means that we have to be better at sharing life – giving up ours for the sake of others, not ploughing all of our wealth into antivirals that only extend the lives of the aged.

    1. Pauline Dye

      completely agree

    2. Rosalie Tonkin

      Oh my goodness, I completely agree.

    3. Dr Steve Waters

      I agree and disagree! For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. We need not fear death for ourselves if we have a secure eternal future where there will be no sickness. But looking at the bigger global picture, it is the populations of the developing world who will disproportionately suffer the devastating effects of epidemics. Whether it is overcrowding, undernourishment, poor general health or poverty, these factors reduce access to healthcare and increase rates of illness and death. Vaccines must be shared globally, through the WHO Covax scheme or otherwise, to protect those more vulnerable populations. But it is generally the developed nations who have the resources to develop the vaccines and then share them. I agree with your point about not pouring all our wealth into extending the lives of the aged in the developed world. But you make a wrong decision in applying this principle to Covid-19 which disproportionately hits the developing world.

  3. Soph

    Thank you for your article. I appreciate this perspective. I often wonder that this discussion rarely comes up with Christians wanting to do IVF, when so much of IVF technology has been developed on fetal cells. We can choose quite conveniently what we will make a fuss over!

  4. Ernests

    Do I understand correctly, that for developing and manufacturing a vaccine from HEK-293 needs only one (few) fetuses? And once vaccine is developed there’s no more need for fetuses for manufacturing?

    1. Peter Ratcliff

      Yes. No more aborted tissue is required as these cell lines from 40 or more years ago are still being multiplied today. Using aborted babies is no longer permissable.

      1. Francis Sansbury

        The use of terminations of pregnancy to develop cell lines for vaccine development continues. See: Ma et al. Characteristics and viral propagation properties of a new human diploid cell line, walvax-2, and its suitability as a candidate cell substrate for vaccine production. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2015;11(4):998-1009, https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2015.1009811.
        “Before the study, we made strict and comprehensive inclusion criteria in order to guarantee a high quality cell strain: 1) gestational age 2 to 4 months; 2) induction of labor with the water bag method; 3) the parents career should not involve contact with chemicals and radiation; 4) both parents are in good health without neoplastic and genetic diseases, and with no history of human tissue or organ transplantation in the families traced for 3 generations; and 5) no infectious diseases. The tissues from the freshly aborted fetuses were immediately sent to the laboratory for the preparation of the cells.” The “water bag method” is presumably “Valve-type water-bag apparatus for induced abortion,” https://patents.google.com/patent/CN2083038U/en.

  5. Curious scientist

    As an scientist it’s hard for me to see any problem with this. Using cells from a long gone expired human being for science is the same as using any other material for science. These particular HEK-293 cell lines are just hybrid material that have come from a human embryonic kidney cells many decades ago transfected with adenovirus genetical material. Cell lines like HEK-293, HeLa etc are widely used in cell biology, science and medicine because they are relatively stable (with little mutations) and immortal (keep replicating infinitely as long as the necessary nutrients are provided). They have been used for decades to research not only vaccines but also drugs, viruses, bacteria etc. If we look at it from the physical point of view, then our bodies are just borrowed atoms and molecules, part of the material Universe around us. We have accumulated this material by eating food, metabolizing it and incorporating into our own body cells. This is a fact, it happens every second of our existence and there is no way around this. So this distinction “us” vs “Universe” obviously comes from something else – our consciousness and our soul. The painful truth is that humans are not the only sentient beings on this planet and thus we are not the only ones who can suffer. Even more so, depending on who is suffering, everyone can be defined as “evil”. Take for example an animal grown for food – it’s a sentient being aware of itself and able to show emotions like caring, love, fear, not very different from us. What outside of our own subjective truth of good/evil defines this distinction?

    1. hairtonics

      It doesn’t matter how long ago from an “expired human being” the cells were from, if a life was innocently taken and we are aware of this we are fully complicit in recreating the crime. Dressing in it up as a human embryo, foetus, hybrid material, can’t transform this into a product stacked on an incubated warehouse shelf that we should use for the good of humanity.

      1. Diane

        Exactly my feelings

      2. Marian Browne

        I completely agree with you no baby being murdered ripped from the mothers womb and cells used for vaccines is acceptable though shall not kill how could any bible believing Christian think it is I think its purely satanic I put my trust inGOD

    2. Peter Ratcliff

      True but it is not “sentient” that distinguishes what we should and shouldn’t use but God’s law. Abortion is clearly murder but that good may come out of evil is God’s grace.

    3. Ian

      “Cell lines like HEK-293, HeLa etc are widely used in cell biology, science and medicine” Uh oh….. you that those of us who choose to take an ethical stand on the use of murdered babies, have to consider much more than just vaccines?

  6. Carole Goffe-Wood

    GREAT article BUT as a Christian with a non believing husband
    don’t I owe it to him to be protected ?????

  7. Martin Wells

    A pity you didn’t also consider the ethics of testing on animals – who obviously didn’t volunteer

  8. Marlon Cango

    G Thank you for shedding light on this blurred subject.

    1. H Sharp

      If it seems that the UK ends up ‘hoovering up’ available vaccine at the expense of the poor, would it make sense for some of us in the UK to refuse vaccination for a time (even if it meant that we then had to be careful about transmission for longer) to show some willingness in the UK population to protect people in other countries in a worse situation than our own? Without that, it seems like it would be difficult for any relatively wealthy government not to prioritize its own people.

  9. Rashid

    Are there any vaccines that aren’t made this way?

    1. Ms Amma Ghreasaigh

      Imperial College London are currently working on one.
      “The Imperial team, led by Professor Robin Shattock, focused on the part of this sequence that holds the blueprint for the spike protein. They were able to recreate the sequence using enzymes in the lab and generate copies of the RNA without the need for animal cells or human stem cells”

    2. Beverley Kirkham

      Look out for curevac and valneva. Check the vaccine chart on the Charlotte Lozier Institute website

  10. LE MINEUR VINDRY

    Merci beaucoup ! Thank you for making connections whit various topics we don’t think about. Sent by a french disciple of Jesus

  11. Wayne

    Good afternoon Mr Wyatt you say as a “Christian” that in the biotech world particular cells you would not work with even resigning out of conscience. But then as a parent you would allow your children to have the vaccine.
    The question is are you only a Christian with morals at work and not at home or both. Unfortunately I have not found the above writings clear and I will not using any of it’s contents for advice.
    Have a Blessed day
    Wayne

  12. JR21

    When Daniel was in exile he was told to support the flourishing of the city – a city that was not God-fearing, but was an instrument of God, and arguably was evil. He was not told to be obstructive or take a specific moral position (apart from not eating the unclean food).

    Slaves are told to obey their masters in the New Testament – masters who may not be Christian and who may be doing evil – they were not instructed to take a moral position on what their masters instructed them to do.

    We live in a fallen world and seeking to be morally pure by avoiding any taint of involvement in things that are un-Godly can lead us to a pharisaical obsession like not picking a ear of corn on a Sunday for fear it is considered to be work.

    We are saved by Grace, not by works.

  13. Maureen Bartlett

    What about trusting our God given immune system. You can’t cherry pick. It’s either unethical or not. Whether it is one aborted child or a thousand it’s still wrong.
    I agree with Hyl.

    1. Inguna

      Exactly!

  14. H Sharp

    If it seems that the UK is ‘hoovering’ up available vaccine, would it make sense for some of us to refuse the vaccine for a time (even if it meant we then had to be careful about transmission for longer) to show the government that there is some willingness in the UK population to protect people in a worse situation than our own?

  15. Christopher and Angela Box

    I think we are missing the point. There are plenty of Covid 19 vaccines that have not used any human Emotronic cell lines so surely the answer is to politely explain and refuse unethical ones and lobby hard to be offered one that is ethically acceptable. Win win. We raise the prolife profile and the powers that our Lord has put in place learn not to bamboozle the Christian but heed our voice.

    1. Margaret Cox

      Thankyou for enlightening me that there are vaccines available which have not used human cells in their development. I will definitely be asking for one of these.

  16. H Sharp

    “If rich countries use all the available vaccine to protect only their own populations… almost twice as many people could ultimately die from Covid-19”. I’m a healthy 40 year old in the UK and as a follower of Christ, who laid down his privilege and even his life for others, I don’t want to receive the benefit of being vaccinated if this deprives someone more in need (e.g. an older healthcare worker in a country without the buying power of the UK). Anyone think it’s a worth a social media campaign of ‘Please donate my dose to someone more in need’?

  17. Tom Hockley

    Many thanks for this excellent article and supporting appendix on which vaccines have been developed or tested with human cell lines. I note Israel, Germany, China and India all have “ethical” vaccines. I hope such a vaccine becomes available in the UK soon. Please keep us posted!

  18. K Johnstone

    Very helpful and insightful article – thank you, Professor Wyatt. However, I am still a bit confused, and I’m sorry if I have missed the point. The HEK-293 cell, as it stands today, does that cell line still have any element of foetal cell in it? Also, how can we be absolutely sure that vaccine makers are being 100% upfront about what is going into their vaccines (e.g. foetal bovine serum)? Personally, I am not fearful of getting COVID, but if I refuse the vaccine and then get COVID and die, or am seriously ill long-term, have I then been irresponsible by not having the vaccine?

  19. Roman I Jopson

    I am doing a Project for online school and found this which had great relevance to the topic I chose. I not only found this really helpful for my project but just really interesting and you made some really good points.
    Thanks Mate 🙂

  20. Susan Burger

    I have learned so much from your article. Thank you so much!!!

  21. Matthew Davis

    Thanks for your article.

    The Gospel Coalition, hardly a pro-choice organisation, state that: “HEK293T is a widely used immortalized cell line that was made from fetal tissue acquired in the Netherlands in the 1970s. The records pertaining to the origins of HEK293T were lost, so it is not known where the fetal tissue originated. However there are strong reasons to believe the tissue came from a miscarriage, and no compelling reason to believe it came from an elective abortion.
    The cell lines were created by Alex van der Eb and Frank Graham, medical researchers working at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. The pair needed cells for their cancer research.
    At the time HEK293T was developed (circa 1973), abortion was still illegal in the Netherlands. While some illegal abortions did occur, they were not being conducted at that time in hospitals. Obtaining fetal tissue from an abortionist would not only have been illegal, but would have been exceedingly difficult and would have possibly tainted the research. For HEK293T cells to have been taken from an aborted fetus we have to believe that two highly respected researchers were willing to put their careers at risk to forge paperwork (to avoid revealing their illegal activity to their university), risk going to jail for trafficking in illegal aborted tissue to acquire possibly contaminated cells from a disreputable source when, at the time, it was much easier to obtain tissue from miscarriage at a hospital.
    There was also no financial motive to use tissue from an elective abortion The commercial potential for these cells was not even recognized until the early 1990s. For twenty years, the researchers had simply given the cell lines away to other academics.
    In the absence of stronger evidence, we must avoid slandering the reputations of these researchers by implying that they were engaged in activity that was not only unethical but illegal.”

    As the question of whether the cell line originated from a miscarriage, or an elective abortion, is key to the rest of the debate, please would you update your article to provide a reference for your assertion that HEK-293 is derived from “cells [which] were obtained from a human fetus (unborn baby) who was legally aborted in the Netherlands in 1973”. If there is no documentary proof for your assertion, please would you update the article to at least acknowledge the uncertainty as to the origin of HEK-293.

    Many thanks

Leave a Reply

Tags
Most read posts
What can we learn from how the early church lived out their faith during their own pandemics?
How are young people different to those who came before, and what can we learn from them?
Navigating the transitions of later life
Living faithfully as we approach retirement, dependence, dementia and death
This Bill is the wrong approach - there is a better way to give individuals and their families dignity at the end of life
Recent posts
Low-tech transhumanism through something as commonplace as cosmetic surgery, is already with us
Our working and personal lives are becoming increasingly infiltrated by simulated persons
Are social media and smartphones ruining children’s mental health?
Spiritual warfare, evil and technology in the 21st century
After the Cass Report, how can Christian parents navigate the fast-changing world and culture of gender medicine?