Bismarck Diocese: Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine is ‘morally compromised’

Posted: Mar 4, 2021 / 10:23 AM CST / Updated: Mar 4, 2021 / 10:23 AM CST

FILE – In this Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021 file photo, pharmacy technician Sochi Evans fills a syringe with a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Texas Southern University in Houston. Coronavirus cases are continuing to decline in the U.S. after a winter surge. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in the country dropped below 100,000 on Friday, Feb. 12 for the first time since November 4. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

The Bismarck Diocese Wednesday joined other dioceses across the nation in urging Catholics to not accept or receive the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccination.

The reason: The vaccine is made from stem cells derived from aborted fetuses.

“The recently approved (FDA 2-27-2021) vaccine produced by Janssen/Johnson & Johnson used abortion-derived cell lines in the design, development, production and lab testing,” the Bismarck Diocese posted on its website and Facebook page. “This Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine is morally compromised and therefore unacceptable for any Catholic physician or health care worker to dispense and for any Catholic to receive due to its direct connection to the intrinsically evil act of abortion.”

Instead, the diocese said, Catholics electing to receive a COVID shot should choose from either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.