Majority Support Obama's Lifting Of Stem Cell Restrictions
Posted Mar 19, 2009 at 8:40 AM by Maurice Berger
A majority of Americans support President Barack Obama's executive order doing away with the rules on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that were in place under the Bush administration: 38% of Americans said in the poll conducted late last month, that "they support easing those restrictions and another 14% said they favor no restrictions at all. About 4 in 10 Americans favor keeping the Bush restrictions or eliminating federal funding altogether . . . Americans' views on government funding for stem cell research have remained fairly stable since 2004, with the majority consistently supporting fewer restrictions on funding, rather than maintaining or strengthening the current restrictions. . . . While a strong majority of Democrats support fewer or no restrictions (64%), a majority of Republicans support keeping the Bush administration restrictions or not funding the research at all (57%). Notably, relatively few Americans of any political background favor the more extreme positions: no restrictions on government funding or not funding stem cell research at all."
