Voting on Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Citizens More Supportive than Politicians

PLoS One. 2017 Jan 26;12(1):e0170656. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170656. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

As the public debate over stem cell research continues, the observable voting behaviour in Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to compare the voting behaviour of politicians with that of voters. By analysing the outcomes of a referendum on a liberal new bill regulating such research, we reveal an about 10 percentage point lower conditional probability of the bill being accepted by politicians than by voters. Whereas the behaviour of politicians is driven almost entirely by party affiliation, citizen votes are driven not only by party attachment but also by church attendance. Seldom or never attending church increases the probability of bill acceptance by over 15 percentage points, while supporting the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party instead of the Christian Democratic Party makes supporting the bill more likely for voters, suggesting that religious observance is important. The observance of these tendencies in Switzerland-an environment that promotes discussion through direct democratic rights-strongly suggests that citizens see the benefits of stem cell research.

MeSH terms

  • Embryonic Stem Cells*
  • Government*
  • Humans
  • Politics
  • Stem Cell Research / ethics*
  • Stem Cell Research / legislation & jurisprudence
  • Switzerland

Grants and funding

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Australian Research Council (FT110100463). This publication was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the University of Bayreuth in the funding programme Open Access Publishing. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.