PET PET
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
Become a Friend Donate
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements
PETBioNewsCommentThe royal media circus

BioNews

The royal media circus

Published 18 June 2009 posted in Comment and appears in BioNews 137

Author

Juliet Tizzard

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.

BioNews readers from outside the United Kingdom may be perplexed to read the reams of British press coverage of Sophie, Countess of Wessex's, ectopic pregnancy. After all, one in every 100 pregnancies is ectopic; so Sophie is hardly unusual, in this respect at least. Intense media interest in all things...

BioNews readers from outside the United Kingdom may be perplexed to read the reams of British press coverage of Sophie, Countess of Wessex's, ectopic pregnancy. After all, one in every 100 pregnancies is ectopic; so Sophie is hardly unusual, in this respect at least.

Intense media interest in all things royal, from the important to the sad to the downright banal, is no great surprise. In order to quench the public's apparent thirst for royal stories, the weekend press was filled with the tiniest details of the unhappy event. But what's more surprising is that it took a royal ectopic pregnancy for the issue to be widely addressed in the newspapers and on television. Thousands of women each year face the danger and distress of ectopic pregnancies. And yet we remain largely ignorant of their relative frequency.


No-one would want to imply that it is commonplace for a pregnancy to end abruptly because the fetus has implanted outside of the womb. Women rightly fear a miscarriage more than an ectopic pregnancy, since the proportion of pregnancies which miscarry is estimated to be between 10 and 30 percent. But ectopic pregnancies do happen and they are not as rare as we might perhaps assume. Besides the inevitable media circus which surrounds any royal story, maybe the one positive feature of this particular event will be its educational value.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« Should HIV positive people get IVF?

Data-Label The UK's Leading Supplier Of Medical Labels & Asset Labels

RetiringDentist.co.uk The UK's Leading M&A Company.
easyfundraising
amazon

This month in BioNews

  • Recent
27 June 2022 • 4 minutes read

Thirty years of PET: our 'Fertility, Genomics and Embryo Research' report

27 June 2022 • 5 minutes read

Children's rights and donor conception: What next?

20 June 2022 • 4 minutes read

The problems with lifting donor anonymity earlier

20 June 2022 • 6 minutes read

An adaptive act: How should human fertilisation and embryology legislation respond to scientific and technological change?

13 June 2022 • 1 minute read

A new look for BioNews

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
PET PET

PET is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Navigation

  • About Us
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • BioNews
  • Events
  • Engagement
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us

BioNews

  • News
  • Comment
  • Reviews
  • Elsewhere
  • Topics
  • Glossary
  • Newsletters

Other

  • My Account
  • Subscribe

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856