Womb Transplants

[JumpingPumpkin]

Just heard the news on R4 of a successful pregnancy from a womb transplant in this country. Paid for by a charity “womb transplant U.K.”. Finished the report with a question as to the ethics and “it gives women an alternative to surrogacy or adoption”.

This just seems unethical to me.

** "And I understand there is evidence for some babies conceived via IVF having health problems later in life. Just not publicised (for obvious reasons)."

Thank you for this paper, I have read it with great interest. The enforced premature delivery of this baby seems quite a major cause for concern in this procedure. It has not ( quite properly) been revealed exactly what issues were causing this inflicted trauma , but they must have been significant.

one of my concerns in this case is that the patient confidentiality of the child seems to have been totally disregarded. We know her name ( perhaps they will change it?) the names and identities of the womb donor and recipient. The child could be the recipient of unwanted attention throughout her life as a result.

But in all these procedures, the interests of the parent/s and indeed the medical team seem to be the overwhelming factor. The baby’s rights are…..less important.

Infertility massively impacts your ability to live a normal daily life.

Avoiding hearing what? And off you pop with your silly "wow just wow" nonsense. There's nothing wow about what I said. Most women do take it for granted that they will be able to get pregnant or carry a baby one day until they can't. Like I did and then had to go through miscarriages and interventions to help me carry to term.

I think you are absolutely tone deaf and can only hear one set of voices.

Plus you are minimising ethical issues hugely.

Im infertile and other than some awkward conversational moments I’m struggling to see how it’s impacted my ability to live a normal daily life

I still get up in the morning, go to work, eat, sleep, go out and have fun

im not living an abnormal life, it just doesn’t have children as part of it

I think we can imagine what the next step will be................

Good for you. I’ve had suicidal thoughts, been in therapy and on medication for a couple of years, I’m on my 4th round of IVF and physically and financially impacted by that, all I can bring myself to do is work and sleep most days, and I’ve been on this journey for a relatively small amount of time compared to some. I’m in 2 different support groups full of women with experiences similar to or worse than mine. Not one of them is living a normal daily life no matter how it might look on the surface.

I have a couple of friends and relatives with chronic conditions who look like they live normally but no one sees the battle underneath. I guess because they can go to work and function on a surface level we shouldn’t treat them either though. Or does that only apply to infertility?

I've got a very painful chronic illness and am just about functional with a lot of medical treatment. With no treatment I would have died from a bowel obstruction or kidney failure. I'm not sure you can compare that to infertility (which is in no way saying that it's not horrendous, and I have great compassion for you and what you are going through)

No one is saying that infertility shouldn't be treated. What needs to be debated is how far that treatment should go, and if it is right to develop treatments that require harm to be done to the body of a second woman.

Womb transplant using a live donor causes harm to the donor. Is this justified?

Surrogacy causes harm to the surrogate mother.

Egg donation again can cause harm. Research is currently suggesting it leads to early menopause.

In all 3 scenarios, using the body of the second woman could result in her death. She could die in order to treat another woman's infertility. Is this acceptable? Should we allow individual women to decide this for themselves, or should we collectively decide that we won't let women be used in this way?

Wise words, @CheekySnake - and I am sorry for what both you and @adviceneeded1990 are going through.

Ah ok. And what "voice" is it I'm not hearing?

Maybe brain transplants? It would be a good thing for some folk!

"Is this justified?"

I think that it is potentially harmful to normalise extreme procedures such as these for the relief of psychological distress when the person's body is otherwise healthy. And it is extreme because there is an elevated risk to the child which seems to not be adequately considered and at this time the long term health aspects of that child are not well published. Plus, there is likely consequences to the donor if they are giving an organ or body part while still living.

It is not just the person undergoing the procedure who needs to be considered here. That is the point that seems to be missed.

The one where I pointed out how traumatic and full of severe anxiety pregnancy is. And how not every woman wants to go through that - and may not actually have the choice not to.

And where did I say anything to deny or negate that?

Obviously what you’ve gone through in that case is life saving, but chronic illnesses that don’t require life saving treatment also exist, so I’m interested as to whether they are viewed the same way infertility is by some on here e.g. let’s not treat it on the NHS because it isn’t essential life saving medicine.

Live kidney or partial liver donation causes harm to the donor using this argument, shouldn’t we do that either? You can live on dialysis after all.

I agree that there have to be safeguards to avoid exploitation and that these will be difficult to put in place but an altruistic donation or surrogacy such as this one I just don’t see the problem with. I’d do it for my sister or my best friend to give her a child in a heart beat. If someone else wouldn’t then that’s fine too.

If someone is surviving due to dialysis there is a significant physical health issue that needs to be addressed for that patient to continue to survive. A transplant may lower the risk of dying due to complete organ failure.

So in that case it’s acceptable to risk one life (live donor) to save another?

What exactly is the comparison that you are trying to make here?

People are ethically against this procedure because it can be risky to the life of the donor.

I’m trying to work out where the ethical line is for those who are against it for this reason. Is live organ donation ok to them only in life saving circumstances? Is it never ok? Is it ok where it’s “deserved” e.g. you can donate your kidney to your brother on dialysis who has a kidney disease but not a liver lobe to your brother who was formally a chronic alcoholic? Is womb transplant ok when it comes from a dead donor, as that doesn’t risk the life of a live donor?

There are many ethical considerations around all types of organ donation, but choices relating to infertility are a bandwagon to jump on and attack women for their choices.

Can you explain if you include a uterus transplant as being a life saving transplant?

Knowing that around half of all attempts to produce a live birth from this kind of implant fail would be enough for me to never make such a self-serving decision. The risk to the foetus/baby is too high and if I was desperate enough to agree to the surgery then I would likely be too emotionally fragile to cope with the consequences of a miscarriage/still birth or child who died due to being born too soon.

Kidney donation is extremely safe. Kidney donors often have higher than normal life expectancy post surgery. Other live donations like liver or lung lobe donation are much riskier and id heavily discourage anyone I loved from donating these.

No 🤯 it’s life enhancing if it helps to end a battle with infertility but certainly not life saving. Hence why I’m asking, is the ethical line that live transplant has to be life saving for it to be ok? So in this case would people be ok with a womb transplant from a dead donor?

And what about the consideration for the child? It is not just about the recipient and the donor. Or is it, in your mind?