Ethical attitudes on human cloning among professionals in Taiwan and the policy implications for regulation.

UNLABELLED

This research focused on understanding the attitudes toward human cloning in Taiwan among professionals in healthcare, law, and religion.

DESIGN

The study was conducted utilizing a structured questionnaire.

PARTICIPANTS

220 healthcare professionals from two regional hospitals located in Taipei, 351 religious professionals in the northern Taiwan and 711 legal professionals were selected by to receive questionnaires. The valid response rate is 42.1%

MAIN MEASUREMENTS

The questions were generated by an expert panel and represented major arguments in the human cloning debate. There were a total of six Likert scaled questions in the questionnaire. The responses were coded from 1 to 5 with 1 representing strong opposition to human cloning, 3 representing a neutral attitude; and 5 representing a strong favorable attitude toward human cloning.

RESULTS

Healthcare professionals had the highest overall average score of 2.14 and the religious professionals had the lowest average at 1.58. All three categories of respondents' attitude toward cloning ranged from mild opposition to strong opposition to human cloning. The religious professionals were more strongly opposed to cloning. Age, education, and religion significantly influenced attitudes toward cloning. Professionals between fifty-one and sixty years old, those with less education, and Roman Catholic professionals were more strongly opposed to cloning.

CONCLUSIONS

Religious professionals were more strongly opposed to human cloning than professionals in healthcare or law. Younger professionals as an age group demonstrated less opposition to human cloning. Regulation of human cloning will be influenced by professionals in healthcare, law, and religion, and the regulatory environment chosen now will play a pivotal role in influencing the acceptance of human cloning in the future.