A nun, who is also a board-certified surgeon and retired U.S. Army colonel, has sued the District of Columbia for refusing to grant her a religious exemption to the city’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
Sister Deidre “Dede” Byrne worked as a physician and served a tour in Afghanistan before becoming a nun. She now oversees and practices medicine inside a free clinic operated by the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and offers abortion pill reversals.
“Sister Dierdre has sought — and been denied — a religious exemption from DC’s health worker COVID-19 vaccination mandate,” said attorney Christopher Ferrara of the Thomas More Society.
As a Roman Catholic, “she can have nothing to do with abortion-connected vaccines,” Ferrara told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Thursday night. Yet all three COVID-19 vaccines approved in the United States have involved the use of cell lines derived from an abortion somewhere in the development or production process.
- Johnson & Johnson designed, developed, and produced its vaccine using the PER.C6, a cell line derived from an abortion performed in 1985; and
- Both Modern and Pfizer tested their vaccines on the HEK293 cell line, a line of fetal kidney cells derived from an abortion performed in 1973.
Although D.C. officials “conceded the sincerity of Sister Deidre’s religious objection to being vaccinated,” they denied her request and “have not granted a single request for religious exemption from the Vaccine Mandate,” according to a legal complaint filed on the nun’s behalf.
The sister says the city gave her five days to get vaccinated and, when she refused to comply, the city suspended her medical license.