Looking into the Test Tube: The Birth of IVF on British Television

The birth of Louise Brown, the world's first 'test-tube baby', has come to signify the moment at which technologically assisted human reproduction became a re ality. This was a highly mediated and visible reality, as this article explores through the example of a British television documentary about Louise Brown broadcast when she was just six weeks old, 'To Mrs Brown… A Daughter' (Thames Television, 1978). In the article, I discuss the programme alongside data from an interview with its producer, Peter Williams. Williams sought to convince the public that IVF was morally acceptable and to cultivate sympathy for the infertile through this film. I will consider how he went about this by focusing on the programme's visual presentation of Louise Brown, Peter Williams' aims in making the film and his sympathetic relationship with the 'pioneers' of IVF, gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and physiologist Robert Edwards. I will conclude with a discussion of the political implications of this film and how it contributed to the normalisation of IVF at a pivotal moment in its history.

'The men who made the breakthrough': How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978

This article examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first 'test-tube baby', Louise Brown. In 1978, the British press represented the birth of Louise Brown as both a success and a source of hope. The main pairs of protagonists in this story were Steptoe and Edwards and Lesley and John Brown, who metonymically represented British science and infertile couples, respectively. In the dominant 'success' narrative of the birth of Louise Brown as depicted in the British press in 1978, Edwards and Steptoe seemed to embody 'British' values of industriousness, perseverance, altruism, ingenuity and teamwork. Thus, their success was simultaneously a British success. With Louise Brown's birth, in-vitro fertilization came to stand for the potential happiness of infertile people and a bright future for British science and industry.

Assisted reproductive technology after the birth of louise brown

BACKGROUND

Public interest in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has remained high since the birth of the world's first in vitro fertilization baby, Louise Brown, in the United Kingdom. ART allows scientists to manipulate the fertilization process in order to bypass some pathological obstacles such as blocked fallopian tubes and non-functioning ovaries in the females, and blocked vas deferens and low sperm count in the males. The purpose was to provide a historical outline and identify the researches that most contributed to ART.

METHODS

A review of published experimental and clinical studies of assisted reproduction carried out at the University of Bristol library website (MetaLib(®)). A cross-search of seven different medical databases (AMED-Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, BIOSIS Previews on Web of Knowledge, Cochrane Library, Embase, and the Medline on Web of Knowledge, OvidSP and PubMed) was completed by using the key words to explore the major milestones and progress in the development and implementation of ART.

RESULTS

A speedy advancement in the development of different assisted reproductive techniques makes infertility problem more treatable than it ever had been.

CONCLUSION

Although no other field in the medicine has integrated new knowledge into the daily practice more quickly than ART yet, there is a need for social research to counterbalance the dominance of biomedical one, in particular the people's actual experiences and expectations of ART.