Americans Are of Two Minds About the “Moral Acceptability” of Suicide

Gallup just issued its annual poll on "moral acceptability." I was struck by the dramatically different results in the two questions about suicide.

The first question asked about "doctor assisted suicide." Close to a majority, 49 percent, of respondents answered that committing suicide with a doctor's help is morally acceptable, while 45 percent responded that it is not.

The other question asked simply about the moral acceptability of "suicide." Strikingly, only 21 percent said that it is morally acceptable to take one's own life, while a whopping 70 percent said it is not. Indeed, suicide was one of the lowest "morally acceptable" behaviors in the entire poll. Only cloning humans, polygamy, and extramarital affairs had a lower moral acceptability rating.

That's quite a paradox. So, what's going on? Why the wide disparity in answering two questions that are about the same issue?