(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-09-07)
Smith, Heather K.
In the last 30 years, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has created a significant amount of controversy around the world. Within the U.S., policy movement has been limited, occurring primarily at the state level, which has created a fragmented system of rules to manage the technology. However, there appear to be indications that how the issue is presented, and which actors are chosen to be represented in legislation, may impact the passage of policy, thereby also providing a reason for why little policy movement has occurred. In this study, pieces of federal, California and Georgia legislation were examined for the occurrence of differing frames, as identified by the actors presented, in order to determine whether different frames occurred in passed legislation than those found in failed legislation. It was determined that, while actors did not differ significantly between passed and failed legislation, there were some slight differences between actors used at the federal level, as well between the different state levels. Even further, the presentation of actors and their interests did appear to differ slightly between passed and failed legislation.