Clarence Thomas Dissent Parrots Disputed Claim Covid-19 Vaccines ‘Derived’ From Cells of ‘Aborted Children’

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas parrotted a disputed claim in a dissent on Thursday that Covid-19 vaccinations were made using cells from “aborted children.”

Thomas cited plaintiffs in his dissent to a Supreme Court decision to not hear a legal challenge by New York health care workers who sued in opposition to vaccine mandates on religious grounds.

Thomas quoted the plaintiffs in the case, pushing the claim that cells from “aborted children” go into the making of vaccines, which served as the basis of the legal challenge Thomas argued deserved to go before the Supreme Court.

The right-wing justice wrote the plaintiffs brought legal action “on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children.”

Thomas, whose wife has been a lightning rod of controversy in recent months for her involvement surrounding Jan. 6 and spreading of QAnon-like conspiracy theories, made no effort to fact-check the plaintiff’s false claims that he echoed.

Covid-19 vaccines contain messenger RNA, which is a genetic material that signals the immune system to battle the coronavirus.

“Pfizer and Moderna used fetal cell lines early in their Covid vaccine development to test the efficacy of their formulas, as other vaccines have in the past,” NBC News explains, noting the origin of the false claim Thomas parroted.

“The fetal tissue used in these processes came from elective abortions that happened decades ago. But the cells have since replicated many times, so none of the original tissue is involved in the making of modern vaccines,” notes NBC, concluding:

So it is not true that Covid vaccines are manufactured using fetal cell lines, nor do they contain any aborted cells.