(Spoilers included)
Louise Joy Brown was born on July 25th, 1978, in Lancashire, England. She was the first baby to be born via in vitro fertilization (IVF).
The film Joy (2024) focuses on the trailblazing team behind the scenes of Brown’s conception and birth. This team included a nurse, a scientist, and a surgeon, who all worked tirelessly to make IVF a reality.
While scientist Sir Robert Edwards and Dr. Patrick Steptoe are often centered in the discussion around the history of IVF, Joy sets Jean Purdy, the young nurse who worked alongside Edwards and Dr. Steptoe, at the forefront.
Joy begins with an optimistic Edwards (played by James Norton) and Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie) trying to convince a cantankerous but kind Dr. Steptoe (Bill Nighy) to join them in their pursuit of helping women give birth via IVF.
“We’re going to cure childlessness,” Edwards says in the first act.
Dr. Steptoe is portrayed as a more hesitant counterpart. He’s worried about the inevitable backlash from the church, the state and the world.
“They’ll throw the book at us,” he says, to which Edwards replies “but we’ll have the mothers. The mothers will back us.”
In August of 1970, stage one of the trials was complete — Edwards had 17 human cells growing outside the uterus in one embryo. The team believed this would secure them funding, but the medical research council raised ethical and practical issues. They were concerned about the “normality” of the children that would be born, i.e. that the IVF babies might be disabled. They were also (ostensibly) concerned about overpopulation and other societal issues, but their main point had to do with the science. Was it exciting for science as a whole? they asked.
As a fictionalized portrayal of the incredible work Purdy, Edwards and Steptoe did together to facilitate the birth of IVF babies, there are of course liberties taken with the plot of Joy to ramp up the drama. For example, Purdy was indeed a devout Christian, but there’s no real evidence that she was discouraged from attending her church because of her role in the IVF research.
It’s clear, however, that the church, particularly the Catholic church, would have been largely opposed to their work, likely believing that the manipulation and lack of “procreation” inherent in the trial was an abomination.
In the film, Purdy’s mother acts as a voice for the church. She quotes the biblical story of Isaac and Rebecca, in which the couple prays for a baby and God rewards them with one. Purdy’s mother is ashamed of her daughter’s actions, and claims the IVF team is “playing God at one end, the devil at the other,” because of Dr. Steptoe’s work performing abortions.
We also don’t know for sure if Jean Purdy suffered from endometriosis or infertility as portrayed in the film. But according to physiologist Roger Gosden (who wrote a biography of Purdy after working under Edwards) a close friend of Purdy’s mentioned she suffered from “episodes of acute pain” including some that were “bad enough to require hospitalization.” These symptoms are consistent with endometriosis.
One of the more touching elements in the movie Joy is the portrayal of the “Ovum Club”, the group of women who are accepted into the IVF trial in hopes of becoming pregnant and giving birth.
Purdy’s character is initially shown as somewhat cold and formulaic when it comes to these women, treating them a bit like elevated lab rats. One of the trial participants confronts her on this, saying she feels “like cattle”. “You don’t look exactly happy to see us,” the woman adds. In the movie, this conversation allows Purdy to grow, to show the real warmth and admiration she has for the Ovum Club.
Grace Macdonald, who gave birth to the world’s second IVF baby, confirms that the Ovum Club did in fact exist in real life.
“I made some wonderful friends…” she says. “We knew we were involved in something very special, and that taking part was about more than just us. The other women were very generous with their feelings.”
Women have often been overlooked in scientific accomplishments. Joy does a good job of contrasting this through the character of Jean Purdy, and through the focus on the Ovum Club — an empowering and galvanizing group of women who deserve recognition for their role in IVF history.
At the end of the film, Edwards writes to the committee that without Jean, “none of this would have been possible,” insisting that her name be recognized alongside his and Dr. Steptoe’s on a plaque. Although it took thirty years after her death from cancer, Purdy’s name was finally added to the plaque outside of Kershaw’s hospital in 2015.
Purdy’s character in Joy sums up the pain of infertility quite beautifully when she says the following to Dr. Steptoe after he worries aloud that they might be causing more harm than good:
“Women presume we can have children. We’re told so. There is a biological and social expectation. Nothing can make the pain of that absence worse. But we have the possibility of making it better. And yes, I say that as someone for whom the lifeboat can’t help.”
Between 1969 and 1978, Edwards, Dr. Steptoe and Purdy treated 282 women. Their work is not only an historic success, but something that continues to impact so many women, couples, and families every day in the modern world.
12 million IVF babies have been born worldwide since Louise Brown’s birth.