Legal Scholar Available to Speak About Infertility Awareness

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- 

Indiana University legal scholar Jody Madeira is available to speak with news media for stories about National Infertility Awareness Week, being observed April 22-28.

Madeira, professor and the Louis F. Niezer Faculty Fellow in the IU Maurer School of Law, is the author of the new book "Taking Baby Steps: How Patients and Fertility Clinics Collaborate in Conception," the most comprehensive study to date of the complex emotional, personal and ethical world that patients enter when they seek infertility treatment.

The book results from research that included in-depth interviews with 130 patients who had undergone infertility treatment and 83 medical professionals in the field. Madeira, who gave birth to triplets in 2007 after undergoing in vitro fertilization, takes issue with the stereotype that women who seek fertility treatment are "desperate" and incapable of making rational decisions about medical care, and explores how patients and physicians together work through difficult emotional and ethical issues to build families.

To speak with Madeira, contact Steve Hinnefeld at Indiana University media relations, 812-856-3488 or [email protected].