Uterus transplants

Another aspect of this 'lets have artificial uteruses and grow babies in labs so parents can just go live their lives and come collect the finished product at the end' is to separate all emotional bonds and connections between unborn children and their mother. The female parent. The one whose body is being shared by the child.

It dehumanises the child to better commodify it.

And to the pp above: I would refuse uterus donation full stop to anyone at all. I don't want my body used to make children with any biological connection to me when I have no means of knowing and supporting the wellbeing and care of that child - and we're talking at the moment about a child who will be the subject of experimentation with huge amounts of drugs and no real care for that child as a person who has 80 plus years of life to deal with after they've finished the 9 months of being used by the person who wanted the experience of pregnancy. Adult selfishness is becoming the primary concern.

And again the utter incoherence:

pregnant females cannot have a bloody paracetamol for fear of harming the child
but lets stuff people and the unborn child full of all kinds of drugs to enable this agenda

women should never be allowed to end a pregnancy because pro life, tiny human, omg the horror
but lets create a foetus specifically to experiment on and then destroy to enable this agenda.

It comes down really to it not being about the child at all, but about male people's freedoms and the need to control and own female bodies. And to be able to buy children as a desired life experience. #ideserveit

Same old same old: where is the line in using non consenting other humans to indulge a personal desire for an experience?

I thought the blue-haired 'allies' crowd were all raging animal rights enthusiasts? How's that going to work then?

Imagine the cognitive dissonance required for believing that (a) TW should have the luxury experience of being pregnant and giving birth, and (b) that this desire will necessitate huge numbers of unnecessary and horrific experiments on animals.

Do they actually enjoy the sensation of cognitive dissonance? Does it make them feel all edgy, or is it just another annoyance to bat away because of some guff about queer subjectivity?

@StellaAndCrow How is any of this the best for a potential baby? How can anyone thinking of being a parent think the best start for a baby is in a transplanted womb, with everything that would mean medically? It shows such a lack of thought for children.

Is that only for TW (as for the OP)? What would you think of donation for an infertile woman (although physiologically infertile and socially infertile are separate issues)? Or, as I suggested, for detransitioning FtM, NBs who had a hysterectomy but now would wish to have a family?

Would you talk about any of these donation issues with your family and friends so you'd know what they thought if you were approached in the wretched circumstances of them being considered for organ donation after death?

I'm just scratching my head wondering what use you think any male-sexed person might expect to make of having a uterus implanted?

"Theoretically surmountable per experts in the field. As in worth harming animals with an aim to eventually attempt this kind of surgery.

Artificial wombs such as the ones the Chinese would like to develop would come with ethics issues. If it were to become technically possible, in countries with universal healthcare it could be viewed as a reproductive right for women to have a child without risking her life through pregnancy and childbirth. So would be paid for out of general taxation and not reserved for the wealthy. In countries like the US, with private healthcare systems, you absolutely have that issue. But that issue exists to a certain extent today as the average cost of having a baby is over $15k. Many US women already cannot afford a pregnancy. "

@Discovereads so, as I said, you don't have any clue as to what needs to be surmounted and how that might happen. You are assuming that unnamed "experts" will be able to experiment on animals sufficiently to work out how to achieve this in humans. The only animal experiment that I know of is the rat one, which is not evidence of issues being surmountable.

I can see after all the waffle that you agree with my point about artificial wombs - if ever possible, it will be the preserve of the wealthy and nothing to do with the liberation of women and girls from reproductive function.

How is any of this the best for a potential baby? How can anyone thinking of being a parent think the best start for a baby is in a transplanted womb, with everything that would mean medically? It shows such a lack of thought for children.

And a lot of thought for the sentence highlighted by DomesticatedZombie above:
an overwhelming 90% majority of respondents expressed the belief that having a transplanted, functioning uterus and vagina would benefit their sex life and perceived sense of femininity

I have to go in a minute, but I would never donate my uterus to anyone whilst I was alive or dead right now. I might change my mind, but haven’t read anything compelling enough to do so as of yet. I’m on the fence as to whether I would actively want uterine donation banned in the U.K. and so rob other women of the choice to donate or not.

Artificial wombs on Woman's Hour now. It's an Anita Rani's Fluffy Friday edition so my hopes aren't high.

Theoretically surmountable per experts in the field. As in worth harming animals with an aim to eventually attempt this kind of surgery.

Artificial wombs such as the ones the Chinese would like to develop would come with ethics issues. If it were to become technically possible, in countries with universal healthcare it could be viewed as a reproductive right for women to have a child without risking her life through pregnancy and childbirth. So would be paid for out of general taxation and not reserved for the wealthy. In countries like the US, with private healthcare systems, you absolutely have that issue. But that issue exists to a certain extent today as the average cost of having a baby is over $15k. Many US women already cannot afford a pregnancy.

does not in any way indicate that it would be possible or ethical to implant a uterus into a male bodied person.

Bioethicists are considering it (as posted upthread) by drawing analogies with reproductive justice for same sex couples, transplants for women who do not have a uterus etc.

As with many scientific possibilities, the real question is not “can we do it” but “should we do it”

Intrusive question upcoming so feel free to ignore it. Is this something you'd discuss with your friends and family so they knew your views on uterus donation and you knew theirs if you were asked if they'd expressed an opinion?

Would people feel comfortable donating to women who were infertile but not TW? Notionally, would people feel comfortable if one of the women receiving a transplant were a FtM detransitioner who had had a hysterectomy (along with other organs) and now wanted a family? Or a TM who did not intend to detransition but wanted children?

This is a logical extension of the replacing 'woman' with 'uterus-haver', 'cervix-owner', 'person with a vulva' and all the rest. We're just a second-hand car being mined for spare parts

But within testing the ethics are applied differently to animals and humans - what may be deemed (rightly or wrongly) ethical for an animal may not be for a human.

And the "first TW pregnancy" will still be a massive experiment - one that an unconsenting, innocent child will be forcibly part of. And there's no knowing the effects of such a pregnancy 5 years down the line, never mind 50-100.

@Discovereads "surmountable"... like in the rat experiment described above? That kind of surmountable? Or did you have something else in mind?

The idea that artificial wombs could "free" women from pregnancy and childbirth is also science fiction. If such a thing was ever to be technically possible, it would be for the very wealthiest to utilise, and would do nothing to free poorer women and girls from pregnancy.

There isn't a single line in that article that doesn't contain mythology and outright lies! And all that reassurance from a UK plastic surgeon who specialises in MTF surgery

A transwoman born male? Show me one born female FFS!

Optimistic? Yeah, keep telling yourself that! Or rather keep on telling the desperate people who will believe what you say in the same way as they believe that their sexual partners can't tell they weren't born with female sexual anatomy.

Yes! Notice there's not much talk about the end result of a healthy baby.

That is why they’re experimenting on animals first. They’re moving forward with the usual drug/hormone cocktail testing protocols: do animal experiments before you seek any human volunteers. Scary stuff.

As with many scientific possibilities, the real question is not “can we do it” but “should we do it”

I mean women get so much side eye if we even take so much as a paracetamol while pregnant so I don't know how they plan to square untested drugs with a "transwoman pregnancy".

It's not just the immunosuppressants I'm on about but however they plan to mimic the female endocrine system in pregnancy, not to mention the effect of higher than average testosterone levels (which even if reduced are many times higher than a woman's).

Well...some people seem to think so!

Yes my dd got it fixed in her head for a good while that having her uterus removed would solve having to deal with periods/growing up. Finally at 17 she seems to have moved on. Well the requests to me have stopped and she deals with her periods just fine. I always point blank said there was no option at all despite what she was being told online.

Just on this point - it has happened with a woman, so clearly the immunosuppressants issue is not insurmountable. I do think the male biology issue is insurmountable in my lifetime anyway. There would be no survivors- definitely not the foetus and quite possibly not the host.

Yes China has made huge steps forward on improving artificial wombs for premature babies. Unfortunately, they’ve stated their final objective is to ultimately free women from pregnancy and childbirth by having artificial wombs readily available that can support an embryo from IVF to birth. Which is causing a big stir in terms of the bio-ethical considerations.

Leaving aside the fact that wombs are not plug and play devices, such a pregnant would be highly unethical because of the drugs that would be needed to support such a pregnancy represent a risk of unknown and life-long conditions for the baby.

But then these people never think of the living breathing child, they just want validation.

*uterine transplants