RICHMOND, Virginia, October 26, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new poll conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University has revealed that support for stem cell research favors sources other than embryonic cells.
When asked what they felt would yield the most promising results, 37% said stem cells derived from sources other than human embryos, whereas only 14% said human embryonic sources held the most promise for new medical treatments – a considerably different view than is reflected by most mainstream media coverage.
From the report, it can be seen that public understanding of the stem cell research is still unclear. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they were either “not at all clear” or “not very clear” on the differences between reproductive cloning and so-called therapeutic cloning, yet the majority opposed using cloning technology for research purposes, and almost six out of 10 respondents said they were either strongly or somewhat opposed to the use of cloning to create embryos for the purpose of stem cell experimentation.
In addition to the above, 56% of respondents said they were always opposed to abortion or opposed to abortion only when the pregnancy does not impact the health of the mother, or is not a result of rape or incest.
The VCU Life Sciences Survey was conducted by telephone with 1,002 adults nationwide from Sept. 14 through Sept. 29. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Read the poll results:
https://www.vcu.edu/uns/Releases/2005/oct/102405a.html
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