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May 20, 2022 - 7:00 PM
While most Canadians surveyed are just fine with birth control, abortion rights and having sex when you’re not married, 25% don’t believe in contraception. And one-in-six Canadians have no moral qualms about the existence of infidelity in a marriage.
Those are just a few of surprising results of a new Research Co. poll asking Canadians about their morals.
The online survey of a representative national sample asked Canadians whether they considered 21 different issues as “morally acceptable” or “morally wrong.”
Only 16% of Canadians think married men and women having an affair is morally acceptable, down two points since a similar Research Co. poll conducted in April 2021.
“Across Canada, more than one-in-five men (22%) think affairs involving married persons are morally acceptable,” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co., in a press release issued by the company. “Only 10% of Canadian women share the same view.”
More than two-thirds of Canadians think four other issues are morally acceptable: contraception (75%,), divorce (73%), sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman (69%) and having a baby outside of marriage (also 69%).
More than half of Canadians believe sexual relations between two people of the same sex (59%), abortion (55%) and medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos (55%) are morally acceptable.
The proportions are lower for four other issues: pornography (31%), prostitution (30%), polygamy (19%), cloning humans (12%) and paedophilia (4%).
On issues related to animals, more than a third of Canadians (36%) say buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur is morally acceptable, while fewer feel the same way about medical testing on animals (25%) and cloning animals (19%).
Two-in-five Canadians (40%) believe the death penalty is morally acceptable. Significantly fewer hold similar views on using illegal drugs (18%) and suicide (also 18%).
Just over three-in-five Canadians, 61%, consider physician-assisted death as morally acceptable. Canadians aged 55 and over are more likely to feel this way (66%) than those aged 35-to-54 (58%) and aged 18-to-34 (57%).
Canadians of European descent are significantly more likely to say that physician-assisted death is morally acceptable (71%) than their counterparts whose origins are East Asian (49%) and South Asian (38%).
Just over half of Canadians (52%, -5) think gambling is morally acceptable.
Quebec is the only province where fewer than half of residents (48%) refer to gambling as morally acceptable. The proportions are higher in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (51%), Alberta and Ontario (each at 53%), Atlantic Canada (54%) and British Columbia (58%).
Results are based on an online study conducted from May 7 to May 9, 2022, among 1,000 adults in Canada, according to Research Co.
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