the story of IVF shows how women’s health and scientific contributions haven’t been taken seriously

Watching the Netflix film Joy has been a hugely emotional experience for me. The film is the story of the scientific endeavour to figure out in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and the first baby to be born this way, Louise Joy Brown on 25 July 1978 at Oldham General Hospital in Manchester.

I went through many rounds of IVF myself, after encountering infertility after having my first child. Even as a feminist, it made me feel like a failure, and I faced it with confusion, shame and guilt, feeling very lonely in the process.

Central to this story are three scientists and researchers: Dr Bob Edwards (James Norton), Jean Purdy (Thomasin Mckenzie) and Dr Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy). The trio face resistance from society as well as other scientists including the Medical Research Council and James Watson, the Nobel prize-winning scientist for his discovery of the DNA structure.

There is also internal conflict for Purdy who is a staunch Christian and is shut out by her own mother and the rest of her church community. But the three scientists persevere.

The film shows how they wanted to give people the choice if they did desire children and couldn’t have them naturally. This message feels even more potent in the current climate as reproductive choices and bodily autonomy are under threat.

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This is a film about a great medical development but it also highlights the continuing history of women’s health not being taken seriously by the medical community. It reminds us how women’s contributions to science were overlooked and goes some of the way in writing that part of IVF’s story back in.

The loneliness of infertility

In my book (M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman, I wrote not only of my own journey of heartbreak and hope, of internalised stigma, of the cultural and societal expectations, but also of the history of infertility.

The history of infertility is fascinating to me because it is also the history of how women’s bodies have been misunderstood and maligned, idolised and stigmatised. Unscientific methods and advice have forced women to bear infertility in silence for centuries.

My own research shows that medieval women were forced to shared these medical concerns with other women in informal networks. Then there is the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus from 1825BC Egypt telling women to put a date in her vagina, or use things such as ass milk and urine for treatment of infertility.

Infertility was also long perceived as a woman’s fault, sometimes attributed to infidelity and blasphemy. The silence around infertility has meant that women’s experiences of it are missing from recorded historical narratives. This has created a lonely world for those women who have wanted children and been unable to conceive naturally.

In Joy, we see how Purdy faces severe endometriosis, a painful disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, which means that she is not able to have children. The travesty is that scientific research has not prioritised endometriosis, even as it is the cause of almost one in every two women facing infertility.

There is still no cure for endometriosis and it affects almost 190 million people assigned female at birth of reproductive age worldwide. It can take up to eight years for endometriosis to be diagnosed and some women with the condition end up diagnosed with mental illnesses, labelled hysterical and imagining their discomfort.

Sexism in science

The story of Joy is also about women being overlooked and sidelined in science, of the inherent implicit and often explicit sexism and bias against women. Purdy was ignored in the history of IVF for a long time, even though she was an integral part of the team that made it possible, working closely alongside Edwards, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2010 for this work.

Purdy co-authored more than 25 academic papers on the science behind IVF between 1970 and 1985. Her work led to more than 500 babies being born via IVF from their private clinic Bourne Hall in Cambridgeshire. Purdy’s name was left out from a plaque installed at Kershaw’s Cottage hospital near Oldham to celebrate Edwards and Steptoe.

Edwards’ letters from the time show that he pursued this matter calling Purdy “indispensable” and “an equal contributor”. It was only in 2020 that a new plaque was finally installed that gives her equal credit for the development of IVF, almost 32 years after her death.

Joy shows the struggle around science and ethics, the fear that society has long held around prioritising women’s choices. I wish it had also given more room to Ruth Fowler, Edward’s wife, an intellectual equal, a geneticist herself who worked with him on the earliest development of superovulation in humans, the foundation of IVF technology.

Fowler also published influential papers around the birth of Louise Joy Brown on the implantation environment in the embryo. She had to pause her research between 1959 and 1970 to raise five daughters and support Edward’s career as he travelled regularly to Oldham and various conferences, working for long hours away from home. Her contribution to IVF should have been recognised too. And it is a shame that she does not get her due.

It is, however, great to see Purdy finally being acknowledge in this film. All in all, I found Joy moving. It’s a reminder of what good science should and can be all about. It is also a testament to holding on to our convictions in the face of adversity.