| Since the inception of in vitro fertilization in the United States in 1981 the U.S. media have covered its advances, moral debates and oddities. The reproductive technology, which manually combines both egg and sperm to form an embryo outside of a woman's uterus, sparks the public's curiosity in many ways - ethically, legally, emotionally and scientifically. Infertility, the disease that IVF overpowers, affects one million women each year. But the media rarely write in-depth articles that give readers and viewers information about the evolution of IVF and the years of trials and error that doctors and patients endured to improve the technique. Nor has the press covered the cost of IVF. That information is important to potential patients and the medical field and the history of research and medical development. This series of three magazine articles fills the information gap and also looks at the media's response to that gap. |
