Attitudes Toward Technologies for Conception: A 15-Year Follow-Up

The attitudes of students toward technologies related to conception were assessed in 1984 and again in 1999. It was expected that increased routinization of such technologies over time would result in higher approval ratings in the second survey. This hypothesis was not supported by the results; there were no changes in approval for most methods that were included in both surveys, and in some cases, approval decreased. It was also hypothesized that methods included in the 1984 survey would receive higher approval than would newer technologies added in 1999, and this was supported by the data. Differences in approval of specific items were found by the gender and religion of respondents. Results suggest that methods involving donors continue to be unacceptable to most students, that the "older" methods are not becoming more acceptable, and that newer methods (gestational surrogacy, egg donation, and cloning) are even more problematic.