Is it permissible for a Jew to benefit from medicine which directly utilizes aborted (non-Jewish) children to create the product?

 

It really depends on so many factors:

• The level of necessity for the medication;
• is this medication halachically mandated;
• what “ directly utilizes aborted children” means;
• will not taking the medication (obviously, in the case where according to halacha one is permitted not take the medication; in other words, refusing the medication has no negative harmful effect on themselves or others) by the individual have a direct effect on the method used to obtain the medication;
• and whether there is certainty about this information about the source of this medication.

Additionally important to know is:

• Are these abortions done in order to produce the medication or not?
• Will taking the medication prevent potential miscarriages for thousands of fetuses?

I doubt is there a medicine out there that “directly utilizes aborted children”. Some medications might be made with fetal embryo fibroblast cells, not fetal tissue or body parts, from cell lines that were copied over and over again, descendent lines, originally stemming from one or two terminated pregnancies 50-60 years ago. These abortions were not performed in order to create the medication. And after all of that, these cells are directly removed before producing the final medication.

 

 

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