“Alive when researchers start extracting the tissue.” That’s how biologist Pamela Acker described aborted infants who donate tissue for fetal cell lines. In a January, 2021 interview with Lifesite News, Acker discussed Covid-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S., all of which have some involvement with human fetal cell lines. In 2012 Acker gave up her doctoral research rather than work with HEK 293, an immortalized cell line derived from the kidneys of a baby girl aborted in 1972.
In the first part of this series, I looked at the circumstantial evidence for Acker’s statement, examining her sources and then doing my own research on the vaccine industry’s longstanding connection to abortion. I waded through reams of scientific reports, congressional testimony, newspaper articles, and books on fetal tissue research.
At each foray down the internet rabbit hole, I expected to find evidence that the claim was simply sensational rhetoric. And yet the more I read, the more convinced I became that the use of live, aborted babies has been a part of vaccine research and production for almost a century.
Acker took me on a tour of vaccine history in the industry’s own words. Scientific papers from the 1930s onward documented abortion after abortion in the service of vaccine research. The most forthright, a 1952 paper from the Canadian Journal of Medical Science, described babies aborted and sent to the lab with hearts still beating. I then used Acker’s sources as a starting point for my own exploration. I frequently doubled back on my tracks as I became more familiar with biomedical terminology and began decoding the language of scientific reports. My research was by no means comprehensive, yet it was enough to convince me that Acker’s claims were not far-fetched.
However, in the interest of journalistic accuracy, I returned to a key fact: no records indicate that the baby whose cells produced HEK 293 was actually alive at the time its kidneys were removed. And I still wanted to be convinced that the brief existence of that tiny child was pain free.
Acker herself was adamant. Despite the mystery surrounding the origins of HEK 293, “The thing needs to be said in so many words: you can’t transplant a dead organ into a living body, you cannot make a cell line out of dead tissue.”
Acker then cited the late Spanish physician and bio-ethicist Dr. Gonzalo Herranz. A former member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Herranz was a member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO, advisor to the European Parliament, and author of 65 articles on pathology. A celebrated author, international lecturer, and advisor on bio-ethics, he was professor emeritus of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Navarre who died on May 20, 2021. That is to say, he studied cell and tissue abnormalities, and was eminently qualified to address this subject.
Quoted in Vivisection or Science, by Italian scientist Pietro Croce, Herranz said simply: “… to obtain embryo cells for culture, a programmed abortion must be adopted, choosing the age of the embryo and dissecting it while still alive in order to remove tissues to be placed in culture media.” i
The statement by Herranz may be the most authoritative in support of the principle that live cells must come from living bodies. There are others, notably by American embryologist C. Ward Kischer, who said in “The Media and Human Embryology” (Linacre Quarterly, Vol. 64, Issue 2, May 1, 1998), referring to organ transplants from aborted babies: “The truth is that dead tissue would do nothing. The transplant must contain living cells, and the only way to ensure that is to obtain them from living fetuses.”
Kischer qualified this only slightly with respect to fetal cell research: “In order to sustain 95% of the cells, the live tissue would need to be preserved within 5 minutes of the abortion. Within an hour the cells would continue to deteriorate, rendering the specimens useless.” The incredibly short time window makes the distinction virtually moot, considering the additional time needed to operate, administer tissue preservation fluids, and remove organs.
Alvin Wong, whose 2006 paper “The Ethics of HEK 293” guided Acker’s decision to leave her doctoral research, concurs:
“If in fact the embryo or fetus is still alive while tissue is being extracted from it then the one doing so commits an even more serious act of violence directly to another living human being. This might happen, since it seems to be a scientific criterion that tissue be obtained in a viable state to be suitable for research.”
In the course of my own research, I spoke with Dr. Paul Byrne. Byrne is a neonatologist, past president of the Catholic Medical Association, and an authority on brain death and organ transplantation.
“Is it true,” I asked, “that tissue samples for fetal cell lines, if they are to be successful, must be procured from living babies?”
“Yes,” Byrne told me, “The baby must be alive when the procedure is initiated to get living tissue. …. After death, destruction of every cell is not immediate. Observe a skeleton. But when the procedure of abortion and dissection to get organs and tissues for ‘harvesting’ is initiated, the baby is alive.” I pushed him a bit: “Is it true that tissue samples for fetal cell lines, if they are to be successful, must be procured from living babies? Not recently deceased, but living at the time that tissue or organs are harvested?” His answer: “Baby is alive when dissected to get organs and tissues.”
When I observed that medical terminology can be very confusing. Byrne responded drily, “The devil sows confusion. He is the father of lies, after all….”
Editor’s note: The above comes from Part 2 of a two-part essay by Monica Seeley published in a May 26 story in Catholic World Report.
On Friday, Oct. 1st, 1,000 roses were delivered to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office, from the Archbishop’s “A Rose And a Rosary For Nancy” Campaign, as a Rosary was prayed, outside her office, for her conversion to Pro-Life. The Campaign blew up the rose market, as 1,000 roses was the limit on what they could find to deliver to her, in the whole city. Thousands have signed up for the Archbishop’s Campaign. At first, it was hoped that a rose for each participant would be sent to Nancy. But thousands have signed up, as of Friday– and hundreds more are being signed up, each day. Hope this website will present a news article soon, on this wonderful Catholic news item.
If you want to join the Archbishop’s “A Rose and Rosary for Nancy” Campaign, you can sign up here:
https://benedictinstitute.org
Pamela Acker is a Catholic woman of integrity. Unlike many of the weak or fake Catholics who post on this site, she put her faith and morals above her educational and professional goals. The unborn need more people like her to stand up for them so they will not be killed and exploited. God Bless you Pamela.
That using aborted fetal tissue is not permissible is not made more or less impermissible dependent on whether the human were ‘alive’ or ‘dead’ at the time of harvest. Though the act is far more ghoulish if the donor was still alive, the illicitness and illegality is not greater.
That the Church says this kind of development and research is always immoral is a different ethical question than whether or not there is a circumstance where a Catholic may, in good conscience, receive such a vaccine. Further, it is a different question whether or not there is a circumstance where a Catholic in good conscience may allow their child to receive such a vaccine. And while some deny it, there is a distinction between development and testing, albeit technical, which even orthodox Catholic bioethicists say increases the remote nature of the participation in evil.
The unfortunate reality is that testing using these aborted cell line cells (not producing) in many common over the counter medication that are right now sitting in our medicine cabinets is common.
But that is different from “Can we use them?”. The answer may be ‘no’. But we need to get the question right.
In Communist China they are taking out body parts from prisoners who are still alive. They are selling them on demand to wealthier recipients, even in other countries. When people encourage abortion and using baby body parts, sooner or later it back fires on them. What goes around eventually comes around.
As was said in the book “Abortion the Silent Holocaust” by Fr. John Powell, “If a doctor will take money to kill a children in the womb, when you are older and no longer useful to society, he will take money to kill you.” Except now they do not even wait until you are older.
contemporary researchers make
Dr. Frankenstein look like a piker.
we are literally a cannibal culture
For the record, the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines use a mRNA (also known as messenger RNA). mRNA is synthetically created in a lab and does not rely on fetal cell lines. Cells from aborted babies were not used in the production of these vaccines. Pope Francis has stated that the use of these vaccines is morally acceptable according to Catholic moral principles.
I am a priest like Pope Francis, although I am of a lower rank. We both have a science background. Our expertise is neither in immunology nor vaccine production. He and I can only pass on to you what others tell us in this area. Therefore I speak of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our salvation. Priests of all ranks should do the same. It is what Jesus taught us to pass on, not propaganda of people in the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
barney, fetal material was used in the post- production Testing of all the covid vaxxes currently available. papal opinion is not ex cathedra level
What you call “fetal material”, cell line hek 293, is used in the testing of almost every drug we take, including statins and high blood pressure medicines. Also used in the testing of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
The catholic moral theology construction of material cooperation has been well worked out. Maybe one of our priests who read here can give us a little history of the concept, or a readable reference to the concept. But it is accepted fact that this is remote material cooperation with evil, and no one who uses them is participating in the original evil act (if in fact there even was one). And there is no dispute that remote material cooperation with evil is permissible if the benefits are proportional.
According to the USCCB document from their Pro-Life Secretariat on this subject, it states that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were tested with cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. They justify that it is permissible to use the vaccine because the cell lines used for testing the vaccines have a “remote” relationship with the aborted fetuses themselves. So, too, Pope Francis utilizes “proportional” reasoning to say it is permissible to use the vaccine, that the common good is served by utilizing the vaccine to help prevent the spread of the virus and it’s damaging affects outweighs the evil of utilizing cell lines with a “remote” connection to aborted fetuses.
Yet, Pope John Paul II states in “The Gospel of Life” n. 62 and 63 that we cannot use aborted fetuses for any kind of testing or experimentation, which the vaccine testing violates. Further, “proportional” moral reasoning is utilized if a greater good is accomplished weighed against an evil if there are no other viable alternatives. Yet, there are alternatives that have been utilized in poorer countries that have not had access to the vaccine, summarized in the recent “Rome Declaration” from a Global Covid Summit of front line doctors around the world in Sept 2021, information which has been censored here in the US by those who are utilizing the pandemic to enhance their political power
As for vaccine mandates, this has been proven over the past year to not be necessary for young adults and children at school, and even the adults who work with them, for we have had schools and youth activities open around the country, even here in California, without any major negative symptoms, no worse than the flu. This is not the vaccine mandate of a century ago for Smallpox, which at the time had a death rate of 30%
So, too, for employer mandates. For those 65 and above, or those with health problems, the vaccine has proven valuable in preventing people from having serious symptoms. Yet, this is a private, medical, and moral decision. People should not be coerced, or scapegoated, and threatened with the loss of their job, when making this decision. When it comes to people threatened in such a way, we as a church must stand up for them
Hi Fr John. We are a group of concerned parents in San Diego who have been trying to get ahold of the diocese about their stance to mandating vaccines for our local Catholic schools. No one will take a stance on this issue leaving me to believe that they will be requiring these controversial vaccines come the fall. Any chance you would be able to help out cause? Or direct me to someone who will help fight this battle with us?
Do you don’t want vaccinations and you go to want masks. How do you propose to combat this virus?
Some dioceses may go along with the mandate, some may not, depending on the outlook of the leadership in the diocese, and the local principals and pastors, their concern about mandates from the local health department, and financial concerns about keeping their schools and parishes financially viable, and why, in another post, I tried to show the considerations, similar to what we see with public school boards, of how many parents want the vaccine mandate, and how many do not, but for catholic schools, will parents and donors be willing to continue funding their local school, and have the support of parishioners if it is a parish school, and I tried to state the medical facts and moral reasoning of the church as best I could find to help parents decide what to do.
In short, there are schools where a pastor, the principal, and teachers and parents are against the mandate, and have been open and functioning this past year. There are others that are doing the mandate, as are many public school districts. Most likely, parents will choose to send their children to the one they think is best for them
Legally, I know of one person who challenged the mandates at Santa Clara University and obtained a religious exemption to attend class in person with the help of Life Legal Foundation in Napa. They may have good advice for your area
You don’t want vaccines and you don’t want masks. How do you propose to control this deadly virus?
The real truth about the covid vaccines is that the vaccinated are becoming more susceptible to infection and serious illness than the unvaccinated. Getting the vaccine primes the immune system to resist obsolete covid variants and dampens the immune response to new variants and you’ll have to get endless boosters every several months based on new variants while people with natural immunity will have superior resistance than those who got the vaccine. That’s why so many vaccinated people are getting hit by Delta so hard. Look at Israel. Don’t get the vaccine. If you’re already vaccinated, well I’m sorry for you.
37 year-old healthy mom in Seattle died from blood clots after getting vaccinated because her daughters’ school required it for her to be a room aide. She was reluctant but did it against her better judgment because she wanted to help in her kids’ classroom. Now she’s dead. Blood is on the hands of the vaccine pushers. Seriously. Now those girls don’t have a mom. That’s on you, you vaccine pushers.
“truth” of course, tells lies.
There is no evidence that “the vaccinated are becoming more susceptible to infection and serious illness than the unvaccinated”. Please give us a source, because this is a lie. And then “truth” goes on to say that the vaccinated are hit harder by variants like delta. Oh, if that is so, why is it that >95% of the people in the hospital with Delta are UN-vaccinated?
On the issue of blood clots, it is true that in rare occasions, women of child bearing age develop clots a few days after vaccination. It has been found that treating those clots with the usual course of clot-busting drugs makes the problem worse, but treating with another treatment makes the clots harmless. It is ALSO true that people die of blood clots all the time, sadly. Whether the vaccine caused this unfortunate woman to clot is not certainly not proven. Women at risk should talk about those risks with their doctors before getting vaccinated. And as Barney pointed out, many many lives have been saved because of the vaccines.
As to the title of the article, this is true: You cannot make living cell lines out of dead tissue. Organs die very soon after the organism dies, so yes, the kidney would have had to be taken very quickly after death. But it is not really clear whether the cell line was derived from an aborted fetus or from a miscarriage, and in either case, it is extremely unlikely the fetus was alive at the time the kidney was taken.
Some “little rats” – as they call themselves – say I shouldn’t call out lies when they are spread here. Rest assured that when I see a lie that endangers the lives of others, I will call them out. Please tell the truth.
YFC, So they took the kidney? Then they did 292 failed experiments with cells from the same kidney?.
I’m really trying to learn.
ok, If you are referring to the number on the cell line, labs use different naming and numbering systems. It doesn’t mean they did 292 failed experiments with cells from the same kidney. In fact, I’d say it’s unlikely.
ok, Thanks for the questions. I just looked up the wikipedia, and it says, for what it’s worth, that HEK stands for “human epithelial kidney”, and that the post doctoral fellow who created the cell line had the habit of numbering his experiments in order. For all we know, it could have been his 293’d day in the lab, or something along those lines. I’ve worked in about a half dozen labs (though never with HEK 293 or an other cell line derived from fetuses), and everyone has their own system of numbering their samples and experiments.
I’ve read this:https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/hum.2020.29116.oxg
It does not discuss the origin of the cells.
It seems like a miracle. All life comes from God.
I affirm the Church’s position, of course.
Be a grown up and do your own research. YFC is just a vaccine advocate whose views are highly skewed.
This isn’t about the vaccine. We are having a conversation about the subject of the article. I do not appreciate your abuse and I am sure that he does not either.
Not mom, I welcome you and others to do your own research. Which lab would you like to meet? Which experiments shall we perform? Which peer reviewed journals are we publishing our research?
Damned right I’m pro vaccine. They save millions of lives and cause few side effects. I just wish there were vaccines before my mothers friends died and friends of mine as well.
I offer you and your mom condolences in your losses. Praying for your friends.
This article does not make sense.
They are saying that a baby survived an abortion so they what? Removed her kidneys while she was still alive?
In 1973?
They have ways of keeping the cell line going over years. I guess one would say reproducing it in a lab over and over again. Go to the “Children of God for Life” website. It should have a pull down that will explain it.
Thank you for that resource. It has this in the comment section on their article about cell lines:
“The fetus, as far as I can remember was completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown to me. I probably knew it at the time, but it got lost, all this information. The kidneys of the fetus were then isolated and the kidneys cells were isolated…” Dr Van der Eb)
I think there was another comment that said it was 18 weeks.
So how would they keep an 18 week old fetus alive after an abortion in 1973?
Truth: there are many anecdotal stories about people dying from the COVID-19 vaccines. The data indicates that a very small number of people MAY have died after receiving the vaccines. In many of these cases there were coexisting health problems (e.g. obesity, diabetes, heart disease) which probably contributed to the individual’s death. Hundreds of millions of doses of the COVID19 vaccines have been administered in the world with astounding positive results which have saved millions if not billions of lives. For every story about negative side effects of the vaccines there are millions of success stories about people not getting sick from COVID19 and possibly dying or having long term health problems. The opposition to these vaccines is primarily political, not scientific, moral or religious.
Oh, this is laughable. For over a year rational people have been saying that Covid is only a severe risk for people with comorbidities and the survival rate for healthy people is nearly 100%, but the vaxxers and the Democrats and the elites have been saying everyone has to lock down and people can’t go to work because of Covid. Look at what’s going on in Australia because the elites are power hungry. Now this guy says that the relatively few deaths from the vax are because of comorbidities, so we shouldn’t be concerned… everyone should get the jab and be forced to get the jab. You can’t make up the hypocrisy.
Guess what? The side effects from the vax are more than we are being told. Nurses and doctors have seen it firsthand, which is why so many of them refuse to get jabbed and are willing to get fired rather than be forced to inject that poison into their bodies.
That’s not true Barney fetal cell lines were used in the development and testing of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines while J&J shot used these cells in the vaccine itself. Time will tell the outcome since we have no long term data yet but Israel has already reported vaccine failure. With a huge portion of the population fully vaccinated 90% of the hospitalized were fully vaccinated.
Granny please tell the truth. There are no fetal cells in the J&J vaccine itself. None. Besides which, very few Americans have gotten the J&J, the vast majority have been Pfizer and Moderna, and you can usually request which one you want.
Also, the Israel situation involves people vaccinated many months ago, which is why medical professionals in the US are actively sorting out whether boosters are a good idea. That doesn’t mean the vaccines are failing, it just means that immunity doesn’t last forever. You are incorrect when you say that 90% of the hospitalized were fully vaccinated. The number is just over half. Which is what happens when the majority of population is vaccinated. In fact, if you look at people over 60 in Israel, vaccinated people are 9 times less likely to become seriously ill, and those under 60 are less than half as likely to become seriously ill. Also, you have to keep in mind that Israel has a very young population, and the vaccine is less protective among the young.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628471/highly-vaccinated-israel-is-seeing-a-dramatic-surge-in-new-covid-cases-heres-why
https://journalistsresource.org/health/religious-exemptions-vaccine-mandate-covid/
From the article:
“Fetal cells were used to produce and manufacture the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and during testing of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, Reuters Fact Check confirms.”
CHECKING THE “FACT CHECKER”:
Fact Check-Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine does not contain aborted fetal cells
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-johnson-aborted/fact-check-johnson-johnsons-covid-19-vaccine-does-not-contain-aborted-fetal-cells-idUSL1N2LU1T9
“Social media users have been sharing posts online that claim the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson contains aborted fetal DNA as an ingredient. This claim is false. While the vaccine used lab-replicated fetal cells (known as fetal cell lines) during its production process, the vaccine itself does not contain any fetal cells.”
The Astra Zenica vaccine is the one that contains cells from the aborted fetus line. You can check the Children of God for Life’s website to get all the facts on what vaccines contain what. They are extremely accurate. They tell you if they contain any cells of aborted fetal tissue, just were tested with such cells, or are not abortion tainted. I always check there before I get any vaccine.
The Astra Zenexa vaccine is not approved for use in the Us but it does not contain any cells let alone the cells of an aborted fetus. Please Tell the Truth
What is the matter with people???? Alpha variant is extinct. The so called vaccines have one spike and it’s for the alpha…. this shot will do nothing more than select for pressuring more deadly and or infectious variants… stop drinking the kool aid…
Why is it that 95% of people in the hospital with delta are unvaccinated? The vaccines cross react with delta.
Please tell the truth.
Although the flu vaccines are not abortion tainted, I think they might have contributed to reducing people’s natural immunity. I have never take a flu vaccine even though it is ethical to take. I just did not see the need for one, as every year most people I knew who took the vaccine, got the flu at least once after they took the shot. Zinc and vitamins seemed to work for me, only got rare colds mildly but no flu. I have talked to at least two women who do not get the flu and have never taken flu shots. I got the two pneumonia shots and not the COVID one for many reasons.
BTW, one of my own relatives got at least four blood clots right after taking two shots of the COVID vaccine, either Pfzer or Moderna. They are watching to see if it gets any worse. My fear is that it will get worse if another booster shot is given, but people are going to do what they are going to do regardless of the risk.
Pentagon study in the news ~6 months ago showed that regular flu shot takers had a ~ 37 percent greater chance of contracting covid. I too never take the flu shot Anne TE for the same reason as you. I haven’t yet contracted covid even though I treat covid pts in hospital every work day. Or maybe I had it and I didn’t know it and now I’m immune. Maybe I’ll take the T-detect test and find out one day. Either way I’m going from hero to zero and likely lose my job soon. It will be as God wills.
Granny, please cite your sources. The “Pentagon study in the news 6 months ago” was debunked 18 months ago. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-evidence-that-flu-shot-increases-risk-of-covid-19/
YFC if you rely on so called fact checkers I choose to ignore…
I’m so sorry for you YFC, you are a prime example of the warnings of Yuri Besemov.
Sorry thats Yuri Besmenov.
You are 100% correct
honorable Ms. the granny !