Uterus transplants

[BluesandClues]

Whilst I detest the mirror; I read the article and wondered where all the uteruses will come from

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/doctor-planning-risky-womb-transplant-26882914

@KangarooKenny
If you can rent a womb to gestate a baby, it's a sort step to buying a womb.

In the same way I absolutely would not donate my eggs as I am very much not ok with children being created that I have no means of knowing and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of, I would absolutely refuse to donate my uterus.

If that means coming off the donor register - and I've been on it for decades - then so be it. There are very major ethical concerns here, and I won't be a part of it.

Definitely! I told my mother when I was a teenager that I would be happy to have a hysterectomy at that age! Because I had such painful and heavy periods.

of course, when I actually grew up and realised all that entailed with hysterectomies, and just how much of a last resort they are and just how much it impacts your life to have one and just the physical health repercussions of having one... of course I realised how many layers of wrong that was and is.

My point being, in my teenage years where I had no concept of all that I would have been easily guided to make that decision.

If that means coming off the donor register - and I've been on it for decades - then so be it. There are very major ethical concerns here, and I won't be a part of it.

My understanding at the moment is that although we've all given presumed consent (unless we've opted out), the family and friends are still asked about your intentions and discuss it with specialist clinicians who talk to you about organ donation in general.

So, the family could consent to heart/kidneys/lungs etc. but refuse (say) the removal of the womb.

Would that make any difference? Is your objection to TW as potential recipients of your donation or would you just be unhappy about it altogether?

The fact that a temporary uterine transplant into a woman is possible does not in any way indicate that it would be possible or ethical to implant a uterus into a male bodied person. If you think it does, you don't have a sufficient understanding of the differences between the female and male body, nor of pregnancy and reproduction in general.

Just thinking about female to female transplants, would they want an ex-c-section one though?

Absolutely @RoseslnTheHospital
This is abhorrent.
The suggested use of ftm 'donors' is staggering; another example of reducing women to body parts.
Slightly off topic but on the same daily mirror website, there's an interesting article about a celebrity/surrogacy...... more use for a woman's body parts??????
It must really stick in men's craw that we have so much of what they want. And can't have

Funny how all these procedures/interventions to help trans people always seem to be centered around making men feel more girly. I never see anyone working to create ballsacks to allow women to produce sperm. Funny that.

One question I'd be interested to hear polling on is:

What proportion of transwomen who would like to have a uterus inserted in their bodies would still want this if it was non-functional?

The point is that the uterine transplants into men (trans women) ship is sailing whether you like it or not.

Studies have been and are being done discussing the feasibility by addressing all the physiological barriers (hormones, blood supply, lingamentous support, immuno-suppression, assisted childbirth, etc) one by one. The conclusions of these studies is that these barriers are most probably surmountable. They’re conducting animal experiments right now on this, so obviously it’s already been cleared in terms of the participating nations’ bio-ethics boards that the potential benefit to humans outweighs the suffering of the animals.

The bio-ethics of uterine transplants specifically for men/trans women have also been discussed since 2014 when it first seemed a remote possibility. This discussion is now trending towards a majority view that broadly supports it in terms of reproductive justice with the assertion that donors can be sourced ethically.

That’s the current state of things. Saying it’s not possible, it’s not ethical. Well you’re probably wrong on the first count and on the second, now is the time to speak up because the tide is taking that ship in the direction of saying it would be unethical to deny interior transplants for transwomen.

Having posted that, less than a minute later I heard on Woman's Hour that they're going to be talking about artificial wombs in today's programme.

*uterine transplants

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.

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.

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 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.

Well...some people seem to think so!

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).

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".

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

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.

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

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.

@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.