Pew poll shows most nations around the world find homosexuality immoral
April 22, 2014 – Not a single nation in the 40 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center said abortion is morally acceptable.
The majority of the people in dozens of nations across every continent but Antarctica deemed abortion and homosexuality morally unacceptable, according to results from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Global Attitudes.
An outright majority of citizens in 26 countries found abortion morally objectionable – 13 of them by a three-to-one margin. The nations with the lowest tolerance of abortion were the Philippines, followed by Ghana, Indonesia, Uganda, and El Salvador.
Similarly, majorities in 22 nations opposed homosexuality on moral grounds.
Majorities in only three countries say homosexuality is morally acceptable: the Czech Republic, Spain, and Germany.
“The results of the Pew poll aren’t that surprising,” Adam Cassandra, communications manager ofHuman Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com. “HLI’s pro-life missionaries around the world have observed this trend for some time. Developing nations still hold to traditional moral values, while morality in more Westernized nations is declining.”
In the United States 49 percent say abortion is morally unacceptable, while 17 percent say they could see it as an ethical choice. Another 23 percent do not regard abortion as a moral issue at all.
The U.S. ranked 27th globally in its rejection of abortion, behind Brazil, South Africa, and the Palestinian territories, but more likely to disapprove of the procedure than residents of such nations as China, Japan, Australia, Israel, or Great Britain.
In China, where abortion is often compulsory and enforced by the state population police, more Chinese believe abortion is immoral (37 percent) than moral (29 percent) or indifferent (20 percent).
Canadians were exactly split on the question. An equal number of Canadians – 26 percent – said abortion was immoral as said abortion was morally acceptable. More (37 percent) said it was not a moral issue.
The Czech Republic showed the greatest support of abortion-on-demand, with 49 percent of the population saying abortion could be a legitimate moral undertaking and only 18 percent opposing it.
France had the lowest level of opposition to the procedure, with a mere 14 percent saying it is immoral and 38 percent saying it is moral.
Although the media hype the “inevitable” acceptance of same-sex “marriage,” Pew found that more Americans believe homosexuality is immoral (37 percent) than morally acceptable (23 percent) or not a moral issue (35 percent).
On the other hand, twice as many Canadians believe homosexuality is moral (30 percent) than immoral (15 percent).
The global battery of polls, which asked respondents about everything from extramarital affairs and premarital sex to gambling and alcohol use, found the least objection to the use of contraceptives.
A majority (52 percent) of Americans believe contraceptive use is morally licit, while just seven percent oppose its use on moral grounds. Slightly less (49 percent of) Canadians found contraception morally acceptable, and four percent oppose its use on ethical grounds.
“There’s no doubt that placing a greater importance on practicing the tenets of their faith and on building strong families has played a major role in protecting moral values in Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” Cassandra told LifeSiteNews. “For decades the people in these parts of the world have been the targets of campaigns by non-governmental organizations and governmental agencies who are spending billions of dollars to destroy the family through contraception and abortion, and to dictate changes to traditional values by tying immoral conditions to developmental aid. But as we saw in several African countries recently, there are still some political leaders who are more interested in following God than in compromising their values for financial aid and media praise.”
The results of the United States poll, which was conducted between March 4 and March 18 of 2013 – had been released last year.
The full global results were released online this month.
