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 am not in any way in denial and this transplant making the mainsteam news because the trans lobby have spoken about it is a damning insight into the priorities of the mainstream news, it does nothing to demonstrate that men are going to receive wombs at any point now or in the future, despite research in this area.

It seems you’re reading my posts and replying as you go - I’d suggest getting to the end of them and then coming back with any queries just because there’s a lot of posts and clarifications, and repeating myself yet again will become tiresome.

Exactly, Pink News is a hugely bigoted and misogynistic media outlet that is ALL about culture wars.

Yes, I am calling the trans lobby liars. They are wilfully misrepresenting the discussion section of the research they are referencing.

Just to clarify there has been a lot of detailed thought given by one of the lead surgeons in this first female to female transplant as to how to surmount the anatomical barriers in implanting a womb into a "trans woman". It's not just some throwaway comments in the discussion section.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6492192/

The entire paper is concerned with "uterine transplantation into transgender women".

Have you read it? The detailed thought you refer to basically runs through a number of reasons why it’s unlikely to ever be possible.

Yes I have read it, Sunset. Multiple times. I've discussed it on Mumsnet multiple times and further to our other conversation I don't believe "well it won't be possible anyway" is the point.

If you put a paper out examining how you could potentially put a womb into a male trans person, it's quite obvious that the media (and male trans people) are going to be interested in that. Especially if you follow it up with a 30 question survey of 182 male trans people to gauge demand, and produce a paper based on that too.

Thank you for the link. I am sure I recall reading that and other papers on FWR discussion in the past. Given that non negligible numbers of transmen have had children and (as I understand) often choose not to have a hysterectomy even if they don’t intend to carry a child, I wonder who would be explaining these risks to them? It’s presented (deeply unappealingly IMO) as some kind of “straight swap” in the media, like oh you are transitioning so you won’t be needing this.

As ever, female people (however they identify) are conceived of as support animals for males.

Given that non negligible numbers of transmen have had children and (as I understand) often choose not to have a hysterectomy even if they don’t intend to carry a child, I wonder who would be explaining these risks to them? It’s presented (deeply unappealingly IMO) as some kind of “straight swap” in the media, like oh you are transitioning so you won’t be needing this.

As ever, female people (however they identify) are conceived of as support animals for males.

And as I said on the other currently running thread in FWR that population, for several reasons, is likely to be particularly vulnerable to pressure to take the extra risks involved.

Agree totally

I am an organ donor as I’m sure most are now and would have not problem with my womb or uterus being used to help a woman who couldn’t have children.

Everyone is now ASSUMED to be a donor, unless they opt out. The rules were changed in the past few years, from having to opt in and put yourself on the donor register, to the other way round.

I don't buy the it isn't possible argument. Everything at one stage 'wasn't possible'. Everything. And whether people want to admit this or not, research is being done with the aim to have wombs transplanted into trans women. That's the ultimate aim. No way do they do all this research for nothing. And no way would the trans lobby write article after article after article after article if it wasn't a possibility. People are so naive. This is yet another thing that "won't ever happen" that WILL happen. You'll see.

Even if it turns out not to be successful or safe, I guarantee some "health care" provider will attempt it before long.

Yes, and there are thousands of example of things that have been dreamed up but have turned out to not be possible. For every research paper that leads to a step forward, literally hundreds find dead ends. That’s literally the point of doing research like this, to understand possibility. There would be no point in conducting the research if you only ever researched things you already knew were possible.

The trans lobby write article after article after article that flies in the face of things that are possible literally all the time.

Yes, and there are thousands of example of things that have been dreamed up but have turned out to not be possible. For every research paper that leads to a step forward, literally hundreds find dead ends. That’s literally the point of doing research like this, to understand possibility. There would be no point in conducting the research if you only ever researched things you already knew were possible.

That being the case, where are the research conclusions that it is likely to be prohibitively difficult?

You're right, of course it'll happen. Where there's a will there's a way. Someone somewhere will absolutely be doing this and will keep trying until the problems are partially solved - as in trans surgery the results will be shoddy and only partially functional in most people. The hapless embryos and foetuses which will be lost along the way won't be considered at all. The trans recipients will be thrilled with their ghastly statuses as 'mothers' of non viable genetically dubious teratogenic offspring and the frankenmarch will go on.

All those saying it can't be done are wrong because what men want, men absolutely get even if it results in disaster.

I checked on my status today and can see that I opted out in 2020 as that's when the government introduced an automatic assumed opt-in approach to standard transplant (heart, lung, kidney, etc).

Limbs, uterus, face and other reproductive organs such as penis, ovary, testicles remain on the novel transplant list with no government plans to change this list but at the time I remember thinking I didn't want to risk it so opted out of the scheme entirely, which didn't sit right, so I had a conversation with my next of kin.

I don't think the government, this one or future, will sanction carving us up without consent, but since then we have had academics proposing crazy ideas about 'whole body gestation' and universities conducting feasibility studies for womb implants into trans identifying men so forgive my caution over the reproductive parts of my body.

And I'm not keen on someone taking my hands either.

I don't have an issue with this, and would be more than happy if my uterus was donated when I have no further use for it, if it could bring happiness to an infertile couple.
I wouldn't want it implanted into a man though.

What I really am not happy with is the shift from what was a respectful position - encouraging people to add themselves to the register to help others - to a far more dictatorial and top-down approach - presuming everyone has given consent and - in my experience when I removed my name - scolding them if they decided to remove themself from the register.

The assumption that the NHS can lay claim to people's bodies without their consent is enormously alarming to me. It's a huge shift, with very deep implications, and I didn't really hear many people discussing it. These things are deeply personal and people's feelings and wishes and consent really must be respected.

More campaigns to encourage people to sign up to the register would have been far better.

Someone literally posted it further up, nothing in the research suggests it will be effective or possible.

The fact that scientists have achieved a live birth via uterine transplant in rats is surely something to suggests it may be possible, and this was achieved in the most barbaric way at great expense to female rats.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study-that-impregnated-male-rats-stirs-controversy-68928

You seem to be in some serious denial about how pressing this issue is. It needs debating and stopping now not at some arbitrary point in the future deemed acceptable by you.

The will absolutely is there. See this article from 2022: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/doctor-planning-risky-womb-transplant-26882914.amp

From the earliest time that uterine transplants were discussed as a serious possibility the question has been framed in terms of “will transgender women be able to have children”. When I googled I was amazed at how many articles there were from 2016, 2017. I suspect it’s a big driver in the research. I don’t think the endgame was helping infertile women.

It's a huge shift, with very deep implications, and I didn't really hear many people discussing it.

I remember hearing about it on MN @ArabeIIaScott this could have been the thread at the time.

Opting out of organ donation | Mumsnet

I don’t think the endgame was helping infertile women.

Exactly, of course it wasn't! I think most of us on this thread know that.