When Louise Joy Brown became the first “test tube” baby to survive pregnancy and birth on July 25, 1978, the world had mixed feelings. On one hand, Brown’s entry into the world via in vitro fertilization proved those with infertility diagnoses were not immediately limited to a life without biological children. On the other hand, Brown’s conception and birth introduced a whole host of moral and ethical dilemmas that are still relevant today.
Netflix’s “JOY – The Birth of IVF,” a period drama, uses choppy storytelling to trace embryologist Jean Purdy, biologist Robert Edwards, and obstetrician Patrick Steptoe’s decade-long attempt to “make the impossible possible” with the lab conception that ultimately led to Brown’s existence.
While “Joy” attempts to grapple with some of the ethical hurdles facing IVF, the movie ultimately fails to fully explore the low rate of success (the trio ultimately experimented on 282 women but only yielded five pregnancies and two births) and moral hangups that came with the group’s IVF trials. Instead, the film focuses on framing widespread skepticism about the quest to “cure childlessness” as opposition to scientific progress and “reproductive care.”
There’s no doubt that conceiving children in a petri dish was an incredible scientific and technological feat. The downsides of “Frankensteining” reproduction, however, were not lost on the public — even in the 1960s and 70s.
The movie devotes a large portion of its run time to highlighting this response. Several, including Purdy’s religious mom, are seen warning her offspring against “playing God” with men like Steptoe, whose foray into IVF was only possible thanks to his lengthy and profitable history as an abortionist. She also threatened — and later made good on her promise — to ostracize Purdy due to her objections to the woman’s involvement in developing IVF…
The Federalist 
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