Comparative Analysis of Religion and The Public Ethics of Stem-Cell Research : Community-Based Research

We examined international public opinion towards stem-cell research during the period when the issue was at its most contentious. We draw upon representative sample surveys in Europe and North America, fielded in 2015 and find that most people in Europe, Canada, and the United States supported stem-cell research as long as it was tightly regulated, but that there were key differences between the geographical regions in the relative importance of different types of ethical positions. In the U.S., moral acceptability was more influential as a driver of support for stem-cell research; perceived societal benefit carried more weight in Europe, while the two were almost equally weighted in Canada. We also discovered that religious beliefs were more strongly associated with public opinion on stem-cell research. There were fewer convictions in the U.S. than in Canada and Europe, although many strongly religious citizens in all regions approved of stem-cell research. We conclude that, if anything, public opinion or "public ethics" are likely to play an increasingly important role in framing policy and regulatory regimes for sensitive technologies in the future