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Vaccines and Abortion? The Links Are Cloudy and Complicated

By Lauren Markoe, Religion News Service
Photo via Naumov / Shutterstock / RNS
A baby being vaccinated. Photo via Naumov / Shutterstock / RNS
Feb 5, 2015
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With measles outbreaks in 14 states and health authorities imploring parents to weigh the minimal risks of vaccines against the ravages of preventable disease, some Christians are raising an objection of a completely different sort: the abortion connection.

Abortion?

The Internet rumors that claim vaccinations mean having tiny pieces of aborted fetuses injected into your body are flat-out wrong, yet there is a grain of truth in the assertion that vaccinations and abortions are linked.

Many of the most common vaccines, for rubella and chicken pox for example, are grown in and then removed from cells descended from the cells of aborted fetuses. Pregnant women aborted them about 40 years ago by choice, and not with the intent of aiding vaccine production.

Yet for some religious believers, those facts do not lift what they see as a moral prohibition against vaccination.

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A baby being vaccinated. Photo via Naumov / Shutterstock / RNS
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