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Public Understanding of Science
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Designer babies on tap? Medical students' attitudes to pre-implantation genetic screening

Gerhard Meisenberg

Department of Biochemistry, Ross University School of Medicine, P.O. Box 266, Roseau, Dominica (Eastern Caribbean), Gmeisenberg{at}rossmed.edu.dm

This paper describes two studies about the determinants of attitudes to pre-implantation genetic screening in a multicultural sample of medical students from the United States. Sample sizes were 292 in study 1 and 1464 in study 2. Attitudes were of an undifferentiated nature, but respondents did make a major distinction between use for disease prevention and use for enhancement. No strong distinctions were made between embryo selection and germ line gene manipulations, and between somatic gene therapy and germ line gene manipulations. Religiosity was negatively associated with acceptance of "designer baby" technology for Christians and Muslims but not Hindus. However, the strongest and most consistent influence was an apparently moralistic stance against active and aggressive interference with natural processes in general. Trust in individuals and institutions was unrelated to acceptance of the technology, indicating that fear of abuse by irresponsible individuals and corporations is not an important determinant of opposition.

This version was published on March 1, 2009

Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 18, No. 2, 149-166 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0963662507079374
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