Assisted Reproduction: Conceptions, Controversies, and Community Sentiment

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) allows people who are infertile the opportunity to conceive children and form much desired families. Over the past few decades, the number of ART procedures conducted in the United States has steadily increased, in part affected by the growing number of women trying to conceive later in their reproductive lives--women trying to pursue careers while balancing personal and societal demands of creating a family. The initial spotlight cast by this demographic shift in baby making has widened as a variety of other people experiencing social infertility (e.g., single persons, same-sex couples) have increasingly used such procedures to conceive their own desired families as well. The spotlight has intensified as media exposure and political attention to the use of ART, particularly by socially infertile people, has aroused public concern and controversy. The purpose of this book is to explore the factors that shape the community's sentiment--and thus the controversy--toward ART and ART-related laws and policies. Predictors of sentiment include media (e.g., attention, sources), personal differences (e.g., religion, political ideology, beliefs about science), societal influences (e.g., modernization, social norms regarding gender, family, and sexuality), and psychological processes (e.g., cognitive processing, heuristics).