These results may explain the decision to feature the strong plea in favor of stem cell research by President Reagan's son, Ron Reagan, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. As Democrats looked for issues where large majorities of the public supported their positions and opposed those of President George W. Bush, stem cell research must have caught their attention. In this new survey, the large majorities of the public who support stem cell research must look very attractive, particularly because large majorities of Republicans and Independents, not just Democrats, support the research.
Having said that, we should note that President Bush has not formally opposed all stem cell research. The law which he supported and signed restricted the use of federal funding (not other funding) for stem cell research to a small number of embryonic stem cell lines. It was a compromise which had the effect of restricting, but not eliminating, stem cell research. This may have helped to appease his conservative base, but it makes him vulnerable to criticism from the growing majority of stem cell research supporters.
These are some of the results of a nationwide survey of 2,242 adults interviewed online by Harris Interactive(R) between July 12 and 18, 2004.
Downloadable PDFs of the Harris Interactive Health Care News are available at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters_healthcare.asp.
Those who say they have seen, heard or read about the debate on whether to allow stem cell research have increased from 68 percent in 2001 to 83 percent now.
The majority who believe that stem cell research should be allowed has increased from 61 percent in favor in 2001 to 73 percent in favor now. This majority support for stem cell research includes almost all Democrats with opinions (80%) and Independents (83%) and a large, if smaller, majority of Republicans (60%).
"Stem cells come from embryos left over from invitro fertilization, which are not used and normally destroyed. Many medical researchers want to use them to develop treatments, or to prevent diseases, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.
Those who believe that "using stem cells from human embryos for research comes too close to allowing scientists to play God" have fallen sharply from 40 percent in 2001 to only 19 percent now. Those who believe that "allowing any medical research using stem cells from human embryos should be forbidden because it is unethical and immoral" have also fallen sharply from 32 percent to 15 percent over the last three years. This research was conducted online within the United States between July 12 and 18, 2004 among a nationwide cross section of 2,242 adults (aged 18 years and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.
In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample was not a probability sample.
These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
