Most Americans think cloning – human, animal and experiments aimed at medical advances – should be illegal, and religious beliefs are a key factor in their opposition, and ABV News/Beliefnet poll shows.
The poll found that 87 percent of Americans think human cloning should be illegal, compared to 11 percent who think it should be legal.
A larger percentage of evangelical Protestants oppose human cloning, with 95 percent thinking it should be illegal and 3 percent thinking it should be legal.
Among Catholics, 91 percent think it should be illegal compared to 8 percent who say it should be legal. Among non-evangelical Protestants, 83 percent think it should be illegal and 15 percent say it should be legal.
Of those with no religious affiliation, 77 percent said it should be illegal compared to 22 percent who think it should be legal.
In general, 36 percent of those polled who were against cloning said religious beliefs had ‘the most influence’ on their views.
Sixty-three percent of Americans said they opposed therapeutic cloning, which involves cloning human embryos to achieve medical treatments. Seventy-nine percent of evangelical Protestants opposed therapeutic cloning, compared to 65 percent of Catholics, 53 percent of non-evangelical Protestants and 46 percent of those with no religious affiliation.
Fifty-nine percent of Americans opposed the cloning of animals, compared to 79 percent of evangelical Protestants, 61 percent of Catholics, 54 percent of non-evangelical Protestants and 40 percent of those with no religious affiliation.
The random poll of 1,024 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (Religion News Service)
Share with others: