Measles, mumps, rubella, polio, rabies, and chicken pox — no one wants their child to contract any of these diseases. Yet, the vaccines manufactured to protect your children from these specific diseases have either been produced with fetal cell lines or tested in a fetal cell line.
Shockingly, the chart listed here shows how many common vaccines have been produced or tested with a fetal cell line originally procured from an abortion. We cannot get away from these vaccines as Georgia requires the MMR and polio vaccine for childcare and school attendance (though a religious exemption can be sought).[1]
So, how were these fetal cell lines, utilized for so many common vaccines, procured? The following details might disturb you; however, darkness can only be stopped once it is brought into the light.
Three Commonly Used Cell Lines
WI-38: Leonard Hayflick, who worked at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia in the 1960s, created the WI-38 cell line with lung cells from an aborted baby in Sweden.[2] This cell line proved effective in creating a vaccine against Rubella, so much so that “[t]he rubella vaccine developed with WI-38 is still used throughout much of the world today as part of the combined MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine.”[3] The preborn baby killed for this cell strain was murdered because the family thought they had too many children.[4]
MRC-5: This cell line was taken from an aborted baby who was aborted for “psychiatric” reasons. It is used in some polio, rabies, Hepatitis-A, and chickenpox vaccines.[5]
HEK-293: The “HEK” cell line is the line most used either for the testing (Moderna and Pfizer vaccines) or the development of (AstraZeneca) COVID vaccines. HEK stands for human embryonic kidney, which is horrifying as kidney cells from a healthy, Dutch baby girl, around 12-13 weeks gestation (note how the child’s cells were differentiated by this point into actual organs), were used for the development of this cell line in 1972. The primary researcher, Dr. Van der Eb, responsible for the HEK-293 cell line testified, in a 2001 FDA hearing, that the abortion was done on a baby that was “completely normal.”[6]
Ethical Dilemmas Abound
Two examples of ethical dilemmas in procuring fetal cell lines are the method used in the abortion and the time between the abortion taking place and the harvesting of the baby’s organs. A chilling example occurs in a 1987 review found in the Medical Journal, Journal of Medical Ethics (emphasis added):
Fetal tissue for transplantation must be ‘harvested’ within a few minutes of delivery. Ideally this is by hysterectomy, with the fetus delivered in utero. Drugs which reduce fetal physiological activity need to be avoided. The fetus is therefore in as alive and aware a state as possible when being opened.[7]
Scientists can also extract tissue in an induced abortion, though it might not be as “effective.”
And, lest we think that this was only done in the 1900s, a recent cell line, WalVax 2, was developed by inducing labor, keeping the baby in the amniotic sac, and then dissecting the baby’s organs.
This happened in 2015 in China.
WalVax 2 was taken from a healthy 3-month-old female baby’s lung tissue. She was aborted due to the “the presence of a uterine scar from a previous caesarean birth.”[8] Nine aborted babies were used to develop WalVax 2, which brings us to the next ethical dilemma…[9]
How many aborted babies are used to develop one cell line for a vaccine?
While we know that nine persons were killed for WalVax 2, we do not know the exact amount that have been used in other cell lines, like HEK-293. For WI-38 (used in MMR vaccines), 32 babies were ultimately aborted and dissected, before Hayflick and other scientists decided on the lung cells from an aborted Swedish baby (38 denotes the number of experiments done to manufacture the WI-38 cell line).[10]
While some argue that there no longer remains an ethical concern regarding vaccines because no more babies will be aborted for vaccines, the creation of WalVax 2 in recent years disproves this fact.
As well, while “immortal” cell lines, such as HEK-293, are thought to not need replacement since they can grow indefinitely after being thawed, another fetal cell line, PER.C6, was developed in 1996 due to issues scientists had with HEK-293.[11] If another cell line was developed in order to ”perfect” HEK-293, it is conceivable this would happen again (as it did with WalVax 2).
CBR-UK researchers write in an article that,
It would appear that researchers, presumably in a race to eliminate the West’s ‘worst’ illnesses, appear to only want to create more perfected forms, and are perfectly willing to exploit the bodies of unwanted unborn babies in embryonic or fetal form in order to do so.[12]
A Response that Honors the Sanctity of Human Life
Georgia Right to Life believes that even if an abortion occurred decades ago, it doesn’t change the fact that the cell line was obtained because of the intentional death of a child.
As personhood advocates, we can take action and demand that our pharmaceutical companies start creating vaccines in animal derived cell lines. CBR-UK researchers state that “Sanofil and GlaxoSmithKline [developed] their polio and shingles vaccines, in animal sourced cell lines instead of MRC-5 in 2020.”[13]
If more people take action and demand ethically produced vaccines, change can happen. Let these companies and your legislators know that we want an alternative to vaccines produced from aborted fetal cell lines.
When no ethical alternative is available for a vaccine, each individual’s biblically informed conscience will have to inform and direct him or her.
Do you want to do more research? Then, check out Choice 42’s website and Personhood Alliance’s page on Vaccine Ethics.
Brooke Robyck
Georgia Right to Life
Project Coordinator
[1] “Summary of Georgia Immunization Requirements for Child Care & School Attendance.” Georgia Department of Public Health. Revised April 2021.
[2] “Human Cell Strains in Vaccine Development.” The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: History of Vaccines. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/how-are-vaccines-made/human-cell-strains-vaccine-development
Children of God for Life. “Most Common Fetal Cell Lines and Their Uses (Chronologically Ordered).” Children of God for Life. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/Aborted-Fetal-Cell-Line-Chart.pdf
[3] “Human Cell Strains in Vaccine Development.” The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: History of Vaccines. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/how-are-vaccines-made/human-cell-strains-vaccine-development
[4] G Sven, S Plotkin, and K McCarthy. “Gamma Globulin Prophylaxis; Inactivated Rubella Virus; Production and Biological Control of Live Attenuated Rubella Virus Vaccines.” Amer J Dis Child 118 (1969): 372, 377-378. https://cogforlife.org/AmJDisChildMcCarthyGard.pdf
[5] Children of God for Life. “Most Common Fetal Cell Lines and Their Uses (Chronologically Ordered).” Children of God for Life. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/Aborted-Fetal-Cell-Line-Chart.pdf
- Jacobs et al. “Characteristics of a human diploid cell designated MRC-5.” Nature 227 (1970): 168-170.
[6] This whole paragraph contains information from the cited article.
Hacking, Christian. “What the HEK?!” CBR-UK. February 9, 2021. https://www.cbruk.org/what_the_hek
[7] Alderson, Priscilla. “The Foetus as Transplant Donor: Scientific, Social and Ethical Perspectives.” Journal of Medical Ethics 14 (1988): 50–51. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1375541/
[8] Ma, Bo 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.” Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics 11 (2015): 998-1009. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4526020/
[9] Ibid
[10] Note the studies from Hayflick that the author references in his 19th citation.
Hacking, Christian. “What the HEK?!” CBR-UK. February 9, 2021. https://www.cbruk.org/what_the_hek
[11] Hacking, Christian and Debbie Mountford. “It’s ok! There won’t be any more babies aborted for vaccines…will there?” CBR-UK. July 2, 2024. https://www.cbruk.org/its_ok
[12] Ibid
[13] Hacking, Christian and Debbie Mountford. “It’s ok! There won’t be any more babies aborted for vaccines…will there?” CBR-UK. July 2, 2024. https://www.cbruk.org/its_ok
The Sanofil drug insert from 2023 states that the vaccine was produced in monkey kidney cells: https://www.sanofi.com/assets/countries/canada/docs/products/vaccines/imovax-polio-en.pdf
Olewiler, Scott. “If You’re Over 50, Take a Look at New Shingles Vaccine.” Beebe Healthcare. Accessed February 13, 2025. https://www.beebehealthcare.org/health-hub/if-youre-over-50-take-look-new-shingles-vaccine