The acceptability of assisted reproductive technology among French lay people

Students’ Views on the Acceptability of Government Databases for the Identification of Persons: A Pilot Study

The present study aims at mapping French students’ views regarding government databases. A set of realistic scenarios depicting a situation in which a government planned to create a new, more complete database on people, was created by varying the levels of diverse factors likely to have an impact of people’s views: (a) the current situation in the country (secure vs. insecure), (b) the type of information gathered, whether it was only demographic information or more complete information, (c) the possibility of access to personal information, and (d) the level of confidentiality of the data; that is, whether they have been coded and only public authorities can have access to them or other bodies such as trade companies can take and use them. Four qualitatively different positions were found: Totally negative attitude (30%), Depends on Guaranties (40%) and Tolerable in some cases (26%). Fourteen percent were undetermined. Left-wingers were most often of the idea that government databases were either unacceptable or at best tolerable, and Right-wingers and Centrists were most often of the idea that government databases could be acceptable to the essential condition that full confidentiality is guaranteed.

Mapping people's views regarding the acceptability of surrogate motherhood

The aims of the present study were to map French laypersons' views regarding the acceptability of maternal surrogacy and to delineate the circumstances under which surrogacy is considered, by different groups of people, as especially problematic. Participants (N = 236) were presented with a number of scenarios depicting the circumstances in which a couple has contracted with a surrogate mother and were asked to indicate the extent to which such a contract may present a moral problem. The scenarios were created by varying four factors: the type of surrogacy (traditional or gestational), the surrogate mother's level of autonomy, the family context in which the surrogate mother lives, and whether surrogacy was commercial or altruistic. Three qualitatively different personal positions were found: (a) a majority group for which surrogacy always (30%) or often (34%) presents a moral problem, (b) a minority group (14%) for which maternal surrogacy does not systematically present a moral problem, and