U.K. first womb transplant

[VestaTilley]

The BBC has reported today that the first womb transplant has taken place in a hospital in England. A 40 year old woman donated her womb to her sister, hopefully enabling her to have children.

AIBU to be concerned about a potential dystopian future where women’s reproductive organs are harvested like car parts?

Journalists are treating this like it’s a positive, with few questions being asked about how the donor is recovering, how the foetus (if the recipient does conceive) will fare if the woman has to continue taking immuno suppressive drugs? Whether there is increased miscarriage risk?

Transplants are supposed to be life saving, not about wish fulfilment. Apparently 10 brain dead women are being lined up for future donation!

To me this all seems part of a bigger picture of surrogacy, synthetic embryo creation (reported earlier this year) and a drive to disassociate women from reproduction and the biology of our sex.

Am I alone in being bothered by this? I wish journalists would look more at the bigger societal picture.

Link here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66514270

I understand what you're saying, but as I said in my post, there are many medical procedures that happen today, which not that many years ago would have been thought impossible.
Being able to surgically turn a bio man into a woman for one.
As science and medicine advances, it makes anything in the future possible.
It may not happen in mine or your lifetime , but guaranteed that it will at some point in the future.

Just reposting the NHS article that @RethinkingLife linked to. Uterus and womb transplants clearly fall under non routine transplants and (currently) no one is in danger of having these organs taken from them without explicit and separate consent from your family.

https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/helping-you-to-decide/about-organ-donation/consent/

I think the brain and body tissues start to decay quite rapidly after brain death, so don't think surrogacy would be an option if strict brain stem testing rules are applied.

My main concern is the amount of resources used. 17 hours of surgery, 2 surgical teams, 8 surgeons, performing an experimental, unnecessary surgery which has a high probability of not working, while 1000s of patients are stuck in a huge backlog, some needing treatment for life threatening conditions..
Is this what Nye Bevan foresaw when he launched the NHS?
I very much doubt it

I see this as the same as any other organ transplant. In some cases, the chance to have children is literally life-saving. IVF enabled me to have my 3 children, if it hadn't worked I'm not sure how I'd have coped with a childless life.
Why give an alcoholic another chance at life with a new liver, but not a woman the chance to be a mother?

Interesting how well the public relations people have played this. It’s a sister donating her already productive uterus to her sister who is physically unable to have a child

Let’s hope for them that the recipient is able to bear a healthy child to full term, which has a full genetic component for the family. That would be the perfect outcome.

Then when you have established public approval, even enthusiasm, you can start on the less ‘comfortable’ cases.

I've read the whole thread and come to the conclusion I might donate my uterus to another woman but not my ovaries.
I don't like the idea that someone else would be bringing up my genetic child and I would have no idea where that child was or how they were being treated.

Problem is, as you have sort of indicated with "currently", unless you check the website every day they could just update it

all transplants aren’t live saving, what about corneal transplants? I’m personally happy to donate whether it’s to save a life or to considerably improve someone’s quality of life, if it’s a living donor clearly there is an informed consent process and donating the uterus is probably lower risk than a kidney or part of the liver which are well established. I’d have concerns around pregnancy and anti rejection treatment and the risk of cancer etc for those on those medicines and the ethics around that.
if you’re worried about non specified parts being taken surely you just use the tick boxes on the donor registration rather than withdraw altogether

Women with serious problems cannot get a hysterectomy, and you think anyone will be forcing them to get rid of theirs? Get a grip!

A uterus is an organ, like any other.
People donate kidneys and liver, while alive, all the time.

All other organs, including eyes, face and skin (none of which are life saving) also get donated post mortem. This changes nothing.
it is just another organ that can be successfully donated, if there is a need.

@SquishyGloopyBum
I have to say I was disappointed with BBC coverage of this when I watched the breakfast news. It was very biased and portrayed positively

All BBC news has bias. It’s just more or less obvious depending on the existing prejudices of the audience.

I think we’re a very long way from uterus and womb transplants being considered routine.

@Elphame I think that is the closest to how I feel about it too.
In this particular circumstance, it is clearly a Good Thing.
But it is ripe for many much more morally nuanced situations.

I realise it's different, & don't want to cause upset, but I think that about IVF too.
Due to male factor, I had icsi IVF to have my 2 children. I am grateful that for us, it was just a 'plumbing issue' it was morally 'straightforward' (though I lost sleep about unselected embryos & those in frozen storage that my (now exH) refused to use. But I'm aware IVF has become much more complex, & embryos can now be created with more than 2 parents genetic material & a different donors egg.
I still feel that IVF is a wonderful thing. It's amazing. But 'straightforward IVF' was more emotionally & physically complicated than I expected, so how much more might it be in more complex circs? How might it be for the baby once grown up?

I don't think that men will be able to have womb transplants or wombs will be harvested to be used by the rich / in labs (though I read The Handmaids Tale & thought it a possible direction that the US might one day take). But, where will it lead? Like IVF (I remember Louise Brown being born) we just don't know as it is the beginning of an experimental / new surgical procedure.

Glad it's not just me who's uneasy at this report, and bemused by how it's spun as a jolly story. The lack of discussion about what hysterectomies entail is particularly worrying.

Have you considered a bidet hose that can be attached to the loo or sink? Might be a more comfy way to clean it

Except none of this used NHS resources...Doctors gave own time for research, funded outside the NHS

@Megifer just to be clear, it is absolutely your choice whether to be on the organ donor list or not. It’s the fact that you would still take an organ that doesn’t sit right. I don’t see how you can justify that to be honest.

Why give an alcoholic another chance at life with a new liver, but not a woman the chance to be a mother?

Transplant rules indicate that a liver would be transplanted into somebody who is abstinent (whatever previous status of alcohol use).

Most people who meet these criteria will be eligible for a transplant, although there are a few situations where you may be considered unsuitable. For example, you may not be able to have a transplant if you are unable to stop misusing alcohol, or you have liver cancer that has spread beyond the liver.

https://www.nhsinform.scot/tests-and-treatments/surgical-procedures/liver-transplant

If it's from a living donor, the donor's liver will regrow/regenerate in the absence of other complication.

The NHS already rations IVF. I don't know how far reproductive justice would demand the provision of services on the NHS. It's an interesting area for discussion.

Paid for by a charity but took something like 25 surgical staff and two operating rooms out of action for the day.

As a double transplant recipient this makes me feel sick at the potential damage that could be done to what an ultimately a lifesaving, vitally important cause. What a shame that potential donors might withdraw because of this.

i wonder why the sister couldn’t have been a surrogate with their embryos? That’s not an ideal solution either but seems better in some ways to this.

I have seen on social media that a number of women have come off the donation register entirely today, sadly.

I justify it in the same way its fine for people to use a food bank if they have never donated themselves, seek advice or funds from a charity if they have never donated, ask someone for a favour knowing they might not be able to return the exact same one, and similar.

Although, tbf, i am the sort that when I do anything to help others I never expect anything in return. I do it because I want to help, its not a transaction for me.

Very true. And tbh, before I consented I would want the choices to be very explicit. I also have a huge problem with family being able to override my decision after my death. My body is mine to decide consent over many things, not even my nearest and dearest should be able to override my choices. For a period of time my next of kin was my, abusive, mother, a woman who wouldn’t have pissed on me if I was in fire. To think she would have had the legal right to decide what happened to me after my demise, despite me having made clear choices, is abhorrent.

And still no-one is talking about the long term negative health implications for the woman who donates her uterus, who could die on the table, or from a post op infection/haemorrhage, who could have problems with bladder and bowel function, who is likely to enter premature menopause (if pre-menopausal) which is linked to an increased risk of dementia/heart disease/osteoporosis, who will die younger as a result of the hysterectomy, who may be left unable to have sex due to pain caused by the scarring, and who will be made infertile as a result of the surgery, or how consent is very much screwed when it's within families, where all sorts of other factors come in to play which may make refusing to donate a choice the woman cannot make. A hysterectomy isn't simple. We're not plug and play like Mrs Potato Head. It has well documented long term negative health implications. None of this is mentioned in any of the articles.