In the path of Daedalus: middle-class Australians' attitudes to embryo research

In the Australian debate over the permissability of embryo experimentation, four lobby groups are equally divided into supporting and opposing parties, although for differing reasons. The scientific and the infertile women's lobbies support experimentation while the pro-life and feminist lobbies oppose it, and the recommendations of committees of enquiry as to a proper legal position tend to reflect representation of these groups in their memberships. Community opinion is often invoked as a way out of this stalemate, but little is yet known of levels of community support for the opposing views. The present survey elicited the views of middle-class Australians (345 respondents) on the acceptability of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo experimentation, and on the humanity of the embryo. It was found that while there was almost consensus support for IVF (90 per cent approval in principle), little more than half the respondents approved of embryo experimentation on the just-fertilized one-cell embryo, and this fell to only a third for the fourteen day embryo. This was despite the fact that more respondents regarded the embryo of a few days old as 'object/tissue' than as 'human/a baby'. Disapproval of embryo experimentation was more strongly associated with female sex, younger age, and fertility than with male sex, older age and infertility. Implications for the ethics of research policy are discussed.