Clarence Thomas claims COVID-19 vaccines are made with cells from terminated pregnancies

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has received heated response to the claim

Published July 1, 2022 4:00AM (EDT)

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas claimed on Thursday that COVID-19 vaccines are engineered from cells taken from terminated pregnancies.

"The conservative Justice's statement came in a dissenting opinion on a case in which the Supreme Court declined to hear a religious liberty challenge to New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate from 16 health care workers. The state requires that all health care workers show proof of vaccination," Politico reported.

Thomas, one of the six right-wing jurists in the Court's majority who has upended decades of legal precedents in a slew of recent rulings, wrote that the petitioners "object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children."

Politico explained why Thomas' remarks are preposterous:

None of the COVID-19 vaccines in the United States contain the cells of aborted fetuses. Cells obtained from elective abortions decades ago were used in testing during the Covid vaccine development process, a practice that is common in vaccine testing — including for the rubella and chickenpox vaccinations.

Doctors, legislators, journalists, and casual observers were in utter disbelief and horror that a sitting Supreme Court Justice would peddle such an outrageous conspiracy theory, which was hatched by a propaganda outlet called First Draft in 2020 and thoroughly debunked.


By Brandon Gage

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