15% of Americans Now Think It’s Morally Okay to Clone Human Beings, Highest Support in 15 Years

Bioethics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 1, 2015   |   3:13PM   |   Washington, DC

A new Gallup poll out today presents real pro-life concerns on the issue of human cloning as 15 percent of Americans now say it’s morally okay to clone human beings. The percentage who support human cloning is at its highest level in 15 years.

The May 6-10 Gallup Values and Beliefs poll asked Americans about the moral status of a number of issues or activities and the percentage of people who support human cloning continued its upward trend, as the graph below indicates:

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Gallup had this to say about its poll, and noted that older Americans are more likely to find human cloning repugnant:

To some extent, these changing social mores have affected even behaviors that a vast majority of the country routinely judges as “morally wrong.” Since 2003, the proportion of U.S. adults saying polygamy is morally acceptable has increased by nine percentage points. Since 2001, cloning humans has seen an increase of eight points; and suicide, a six-point gain. Still, each of these items retains its essence of moral repugnancy in the nation’s social consciousness, as resounding majorities describe each of these behaviors as morally wrong.

Gallup has previously defined moral issues as being highly unacceptable when 20% or less of U.S. adults rate them as morally acceptable, which would include suicide, cloning humans, polygamy and adultery in this year’s poll.

Whereas 8 percent of Americans over 65 find human cloning morally acceptable, 11 percent of those 50 to 64 and 16 percent of those aged 30-49 agree.

Americans need to pay more attention to the issue of human cloning — which isn’t just an academic debate. Human cloning is happening now and scientists are rapidly killing thousands of human embryos — unique human beings — in cloning experiments.

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Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 6-10, 2015, with a random sample of 1,024 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

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