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

They're referring to living donations - such as kidney or part of liver.

I agree it is worrying, like with all these things a line needs to be drawn somewhere. It is concerning when if feels like people may be seen as a potential resource of tissue and organs for rich people on the other hand if I did die an untimely death and my organs could help someone live who may other wise die or be left horribly disfigured or disabled then I would be happy with that. I am not sure womb transplants fit that criteria though.

Where I would draw the line is if there was any chance a male could potentially end up with my uterus or ovaries, if that were ever to be a possibility I would remove my consent for organ donation completely in protest.

I work in organ Donation, that's not how organ donation works. It will always be to a recipient on a transplant list.

That would be a body donated to research.... Which I have actually left my body to research at a major university.

I think this is a natural end to the chat and thanks for it, it’s been interesting to understand where a lot of this rhetoric is coming from.

You’re labouring under a false assumption that the presence of further research or suggestions of applications is a confirmation of belief or support in a particular world view - it is not. The researcher here did not lie and the fact (immutable) remains that there is no suggestion of transplanting a womb into a biological man, and therefore including the trans debate in whether or not women should receive womb transplants is a bit of a moot point. It’s like arguing unicorns shouldn’t be allowed to work in cloud factories - it’s just pointless rhetoric.

You have not understood the premise of the research you’ve put forward which is unfortunate but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong - you’re absolutely right to question stuff like this when it arises, I just wish people waited and fully interrogated things before they go fully frothy.

The fact some people have removed themselves from the donor register despite the donor register for womb transplants being a totally separate process and nothing to do with organ donation is just further evidence that people on this thread have absolutely no interest in fact and just love a bit of outrage to stampede about.

I've read the first and last page

Multiple women claiming (because it will never in a million years be a reality to them) how happy they'd be to give up their uterus to help another woman have a baby.

Super. But just like surrogacy, every lovely, consensual, benevolent 'donation' would pave the way towards coercive, pressurised, commercial ramifications for women in third and developing countries to sell their bodies and body parts. Which is here & happening right now.

But let's not consider that inconvenient truth that before announcing how brilliant it is, because we're first world and it's never going to affect us, so we're alright jack 👍

The researcher here did not lie

Yes he did. At the very least he lied by omission in terms of the "illegal, impossible and no demand for it". He was also directly asked if they were carrying out a survey into putting wombs into men. He said no. I won't be engaging with your tedious gaslighting further.

I don't trust people who either lie, or hide behind semantics.

Completely agree with this. It is frustrating that people don't consider these possibilities that are outside our small bubble.

He did not lie. It is illegal currently to transplant a womb into a man, it is likely impossible and currently, there is no demand for either the law or the possibility of it to change.

He is not researching putting wombs into men, he sanctioned a very small questionnaire investigating whether trans women would want a procedure like that if it existed as part of an existing study follow up to satisfy the further research criteria of that study. This is very common practice.

Pointing out where you have fundamentally misunderstood your own ‘evidence’ is not gaslighting, and throwing the word ‘gaslighting’ around like that is damaging to women in abusive circumstances. It also doesn’t further your position or make your point any more valid, or your declaration that trans women will be getting wombs in the future any more true.

Sometimes humans can be quite selfish. "How can it benefit me?"
without thinking about how detrimental it can be for others.
It's life and I don't think that can ever be eradicated.

Sometimes humans can be quite selfish. "How can it benefit me?"
without thinking about how detrimental it can be for others.
It's life and I don't think that can ever be eradicated.

Indeed.

This sickens me, actually.

I will be making it clear that my womb, along with my face, and limbs, are not to be harvested upon my death.

Is this not the case for all transplants though? I wonder if we’re back at the train carriage problem - accept harm to a very few to benefit the many etc with transplant ethics generally?

I don’t see how the ethics of womb transplants are any different to other transplanted organs, and I say that as a member of the register.

If they don't want people to opt out entirely, the NHS really do need to offer clarity in how people can opt out their genetic material or reproductive organs.

Wait till a pregnant man realises he doesn't have the hips to support a rapidly growing baby inside of him 😀

Wombs aren’t part of harvesting currently, it’s a separate register and I imagine will be added as a yes/no tick box along with everything else if it ever becomes viable and added to the main register. I agree this would need to be clarified though, it was the same when corneas were added. I remember people feeling very strange about donating loved ones eyes, but that seems to have become a lot more accepted now.

I feel very sad when women desperately want children and can't have them

However - the NHS is on its knees and is this the best use of resources when people could be given a better quality of life if they received treatment?
It also took a team of 30 to do the procedure.

I just don't think we're in a financial position to do this

And then yes, the ethical questions. Where will it stop? Just for women? Or not...?

^^This

This procedure was not in any way funded or performed by the NHS.

So you’re telling me organs that are not suitable for transplant are just left or binned? I’m pretty sure I’ve even read on an NHS website that they’ll be used for medical research if unsuitable for donation if your family agrees, although to be fair, maybe that’s out of date? I’ll have to see if I can find it.

There are actually a decent history and evidence base for women on immunosuppressants during pregnancy as a means of preventing recurrent miscarriages due to an overactive immune system. Obviously ones that don’t harm the foetus.

Check out the Pred thread! I am on them myself (although not pregnant yet) and my treatment plan is for multiple immune suppressing drugs until approx 20 weeks (if I ever get there) but some with more autoimmune diseases are on them for the whole pregnancy.

Me too. The fact that women appear to have learned nothing from the way in which gender ideology has taken hold of the western world, and the way in which rampant misogny and ruthless greed and lack of ethics in the medical profession is just ignored because 'it'll never happen' dumbfounds me. Why would researchers go to the trouble of asking detailed questions about trans women's desires for uteruses, vagina transplants and periods if 'this will never happen'? Has no one ever worked in marketing where you establish a need for a product in peoples' minds and then create the product? You start the process by thinking the unthinkable.

Ok.

But in one of its hospitals? So using a theatre?

A hospital that has a private wing, so a theatre would be used in the same way they are for private surgery - at great cost which helps a hospital to make money. So actually, the NHS probably gained from it.

I see you're trying to present your arguments as calm and rational. That's fine, but it kind of lets the side down when you try to paint others' as emotive.

'No one has considered transplanting a womb into a man and he has also gone a step further there and said he personally will never consider doing it. They have conducted preliminary research into the possibility of it'

Jolly good.