Team behind Netflix film hopes to spread joy and spark debate on IVF

The makers of a new film about the British pioneers of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) hope it highlights the fragile status of fertility treatment, with perceived threats in places like the United States and dwindling availability in Britain.

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Joy, now available on Netflix, chronicles the sustained and wide-ranging opposition that a trio of British scientists faced while pioneering the then highly contentious treatment in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Starring Bill Nighy, James Norton and Thomasin McKenzie, it tracks their struggles in the face of a media- and church-led backlash, which culminated in the successful 1978 birth of Louise Joy Brown.

Ms Brown, the world's first baby born through IVF, is now 46 and told AFP she welcomes the film, which gives the trio the recognition that they all deserve.

But despite more than 10 million IVF births since hers, Joy's release comes with fertility treatment increasingly attacked by some American conservatives and legal efforts to curb its use gaining traction.

Religious and cultural conservatism in other countries, including in Europe, and stretched public healthcare finances have seen its availability increasingly limited.

For the stars and creators of Joy, all that makes their movie set five decades ago as relevant as ever.

"We sit on the shoulders of many, many people who have given a lot. And for us to be 50 years later at a place where that progress is incredibly fragile is very, very scary," Norton said in a recent interview.