Baby born after womb transplant

[Wildflowers99]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/34329085/womb-transplant-baby-hope/

I’m not really sure how I feel about this.

On one hand it all seems consensual and fine, and nice that they’re all happy.

On the other it seems yet more expansion of surrogacy-type science, making pregnancy/babies a sort of human right that we should go to any lengths to make possible for people. And all the ethical/moral issues around that.

What do you think?

I think working your way through a list of female relatives by process of exclusion is really wrong. It does feel a bit like as the last one standing, she was put in a tough spot.

I think this is quite naive.

They’ve managed to induce lactation in transwomen 🤮🤮🤮🤮 something we would’ve said the same thing about thirty years ago.

I no longer feel complacent about these things.

The majority though not all posters tend to be in the UK so we look at it within the framework of a relativley civilised society that has welfare, freedoms of speech etc. within our own lived experience.

There is no way on earth at some point a woman will not be exploited by having her womb removed and it won’t just be did this sister feel as if she had to. It will be some poverty stricken woman selling hers or even having it taken without consent.

It’s massively invasive and risky surgery for both women involved. Also long recovery. Certainly not an easy option to have a baby.
My worry is men thinking they can now carry children. I’m sorry but that’s going against biology and I think just plain wrong.

But it may be a step towards growing a foetus OUTSIDE of a woman's body.

That is completely different. Men actually have nipples, for a start.

I don't agree with it, but it clearly isn't in the same league of complexity as transplanting a female reproductive organ into a male body. There's absolutely nothing to connect a uterus up to in a male body.

What would be the point of that, from trans women's perspective?

I think this goes without saying really. If we can do it with sheep, there will be researchers very keen to see what can be done with this for humans. It is all about ethics, of course. As in, those researchers will be waiting for a time it would be considered ethical, if it ever will be.

So what has that got to do with transplanting them into males? Seems to me it’s more to do with surrogacy - if a foetus can be grown outside a woman’s body then surrogates will not be needed. Not saying I agree with this but it is another step towards Brave New World.

The original post you replied to commented that they felt the research and funding that went into this might have been better targeted at other women's health issues, which made her consider that the longer term aim is to benefit men. Neither she or I mentioned trans-identified males. I don't think many men would want to risk their health, earning potential and freedom by actually carrying a child to term but I do believe that many men would be more than happy to dispense of the necessity of a woman to do it.

I think it is great. A woman who because of a condition doesn't have a working womb is able to have her own baby. I don't see it any different from cornea transplants or such like. It is science being able to put right something that an illness took away.
Congratulations to them all.

It could be presented as a benefit to women, freeing them from the risks and strain on the body of pregnancy and childbirth.

The issue is that the uterus is not a plug and play component. It requires the correct coding in the body and for that coding to be processable in the body for one thing. For another, it will require connectivity to other body parts where there is none.

Even though these male people produce a substance from their nipples, it doesn't mean that they are either providing the nutrition that their own infant needs with that monitoring and interaction between the mother of the infant and the infant that the mother's body should be doing. And it doesn't mean that substance is even safe from all the other various hormones and chemicals produced or ingested by that male person. Plus the male breast does not have some of the components of the breast, including some receptors etc.

I see what you mean, but you are talking about an entirely different and as not yet invented medical procedure.

I'm struggling to see how growing babies in labs would ever get ethical approval, but even if it did, I don't think developing uterus transplant techniques is necessarily going to help make that possible.

It may be possible in future to grow a womb in a lab from stem cells.

I think it could be considered a step through process MissScarlet, if you know what I mean.

Sort of, but I'm not convinced.

And why should women with MRKH be denied access to medical treatment which does exist today, on the grounds that it might hypothetically pave the way for other, as yet non existent, procedures to be developed which might one day enable men to be pregnant or babies to be grown in labs?

As per my pp, such men are clueless about basic biology. IMO an awful lot of people are. My dh, who has quite a lot of letters after his name, said not long ago after some politician had said similar, that he ‘supposed’ it could be possible for a male to grow a uterus.

I also discovered some years ago that he had not a clue about photosynthesis - the essential process for life on earth as we know it.
He attended an elite, very academic boys’ school!
So it’s not necessarily down to a lack of general education.

I’m against surrogacy, but this isn’t surrogacy. I think this is fine as long as the baby was from her own eggs.

if this isn't new why is it in the news?

Completely. I have friends relatives - 3 of them needed kidneys in quick succession as all found to have the same condition. The pressure on all family members to get checked was immense. My friend said she was getting checked but wasn't sure how she would feel if it came back she was a match.

I can imagine those who are childfree will get pressured with the 'you don't need it and never will' lines.

I agree with you. But we get called transphobic for saying that. And in many places they are considered women in law so it follows that if biological woman have rights to carry their own child through medical interventions then so do transwomen

No it really isn’t. We were asked our views about this news story and how we felt about it. Some people have chosen to share their views about women’s rights to have a baby. There’s a difference.

There is a massive difference in female endocrinology and male endocrinology. Wombs aren't just plug and play OP, you actually need the proper fluctuating female endocrine system in all its complexity to back it up and support a healthy pregnancy.

Having the right to do something does not make it scientifically possible.

(See also, being a woman.)

The difference is that you can force society to pretend that someone is a woman, but you can't make a make body capable of bearing a child no matter how hard you pretend.