Doctor in India Planning to Transplant a Womb Into a Transgender Woman.

[Jarhyn]

A link my husband sent me:

Doctor planning womb transplant to allow a transgender woman to carry children

A doctor in India is planning a womb transplant that might allow a transgender woman to carry children.

www.businessinsider.com

A doctor in India is planning to transplant a womb into a transgender woman, possibly enabling her to carry children, a report says.

New Delhi-based surgeon Dr Narendra Kaushik plans to perform the surgery at his clinic using a donated organ from a living or dead donor, according to The Mirror.

"Every transgender woman wants to be as female as possible," Kaushik told the paper.

"And that includes being a mother. The way towards this is with a uterine transplant, the same as a kidney or any other transplant."


While a transplanted uterus would not allow a transgender woman to conceive naturally, due to the womb not connecting to any fallopian tubes, she could in theory become pregnant through IVF, The Mirror said.

There has only been one recorded case of a trans woman having a uterus transplant, Danish artist Lili Elbe in 1931, but she died months later from complications. Elbe was played by Eddie Redmayne in the Oscar-winning film "The Danish Girl."

Uterine transplants are rare even for cis-gender woman, having first being successfully carried out in Sweden in 2014. The first US uterine transplant took place at the Cleveland Clinic in 2016. Both procedures resulted in successful live births.

The costly and complicated procedures are considered to be experimental and risky, with many procedures failing or causing complications.

Medical professionals are divided over whether the operation in a transgender woman would be successful.

Surgeon Christopher Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic, said the procedure would be "essentially identical" to that of a cis-women, The Mirror reported.

"Once the medical community accept this as a treatment for cis-women with uterine infertility, such as the congenital absence of a womb, then it would be illegal to deny a trans-female who has completed her transition," Inglefield said.

"There are clearly anatomical boundaries when it comes to trans women but these are problems that I believe can be surmounted and the transplant into a trans-female is essentially identical to that of a cis-female."

However, Professor Robert Winston, a renowned British doctor, said the procedure was "very dangerous," according to The Mirror.

"The problems are huge, it would be a hugely difficult operation," Winston said. "And you still don't have a functioning cervix or vagina to allow the birth canal."

"The risk of death to the patient would be very high. Both from the operation to allow the transplantation and also from the pregnancy. It would simply not be ethically acceptable," he said.

Dr Kaushik, who runs a busy clinic performing gender-affirming surgeries, said he is confident in the procedure.

"This is the future. We cannot predict exactly when this will happen but it will happen very soon," he told The Mirror.

"We have our plans and we are very very optimistic about this."

Well, looks like it's sooner rather than later that trans women will be giving birth.

Personally, I would like to see more progress made on anti-rejection treatments, but to me this is a pretty hopeful development. I wonder in some respects how long it will take before people allow this of those who do not explicitly identify as a "woman".

 

[Jayjay]

Unnecessary organ transplantation that could go fatally wrong in more ways than one. For example, what happens in case of a miscarriage? Does the womb automatically just eject the remains of the foetus into the guts of the carrier?

 

[Jarhyn]

Unnecessary organ transplantation that could go fatally wrong in more ways than one. For example, what happens in case of a miscarriage? Does the womb automatically just eject the remains of the foetus into the guts of the carrier?

So, necessity and your assessment of risk aside, this has some implications to some claims about biological realities and various forms of essentialism claimed from phylogenic application of language.

I expect that the surgeon involved has tooled around in that biology long enough to have figured out some things about the plumbing, what to shave down, what to reroute, where to route it to.

I expect they are planning on transplanting the whole thing?

I certainly hope to hear more about the process and how they plan on dealing with various aspects of it.

 

[Jayjay]

Unnecessary organ transplantation that could go fatally wrong in more ways than one. For example, what happens in case of a miscarriage? Does the womb automatically just eject the remains of the foetus into the guts of the carrier?

So, necessity and your assessment of risk aside, this has some implications to some claims about biological realities and various forms of essentialism claimed from phylogenic application of language.

Well, I googled it a bit and even women recipients will need to deliver the baby via c-section. So they don't actually "connect the plumbing" so to speak. Thus my concern for additional complications are probably unfounded. A trans woman probably has hormone levels that are comparable to any woman, so there isn't even an additional risk to the baby. A man without hormone treatments might be another thing entirely.

I think an adult can do whatever they want with their bodies. If the operation can be done safely, that's fine. But uterus transplants are hardly a life-saving operation for anyone. In any case, experiments of this sort might give us insights how to carry children to term completely outside human body, which would be an incredible boon to entire human race.

 

[Jarhyn]

Unnecessary organ transplantation that could go fatally wrong in more ways than one. For example, what happens in case of a miscarriage? Does the womb automatically just eject the remains of the foetus into the guts of the carrier?

So, necessity and your assessment of risk aside, this has some implications to some claims about biological realities and various forms of essentialism claimed from phylogenic application of language.

Well, I googled it a bit and even women recipients will need to deliver the baby via c-section. So they don't actually "connect the plumbing" so to speak. Thus my concern for additional complications are probably unfounded. A trans woman probably has hormone levels that are comparable to any woman, so there isn't even an additional risk to the baby. A man without hormone treatments might be another thing entirely.

I think an adult can do whatever they want with their bodies. If the operation can be done safely, that's fine. But uterus transplants are hardly a life-saving operation for anyone. In any case, experiments of this sort might give us insights how to carry children to term completely outside human body, which would be an incredible boon to entire human race.

Indeed, it would be an incredible boon. I think we would need to consider as a species how to control and regulate such tech, however. We don't want folks being able to just grow a bunch of hydroponic Hitler clones on the down-low or whatever

 

[Jayjay]

Indeed, it would be an incredible boon. I think we would need to consider as a species how to control and regulate such tech, however. We don't want folks being able to just grow a bunch of hydroponic Hitler clones on the down-low or whatever

What's stopping folks growing a bunch of organic Hitler clones right now?

 

[Jarhyn]

Indeed, it would be an incredible boon. I think we would need to consider as a species how to control and regulate such tech, however. We don't want folks being able to just grow a bunch of hydroponic Hitler clones on the down-low or whatever

What's stopping folks growing a bunch of organic Hitler clones right now?

A marked lack of people willing to keep their mouth shut about gestating a Hitler clone.

It's a lot easier when the womb is not attached to a human being that needs to be worried about in various ways.

 

[Bomb#20]

Personally, I would like to see more progress made on anti-rejection treatments, but to me this is a pretty hopeful development. I wonder in some respects how long it will take before people allow this of those who do not explicitly identify as a "woman".

I expect how the patient identifies will matter a lot less than whether the patient is taking estrogen.

Indeed, it would be an incredible boon. I think we would need to consider as a species how to control and regulate such tech, however. We don't want folks being able to just grow a bunch of hydroponic Hitler clones on the down-low or whatever

Folks can already grow a bunch of Hitler clones on the down-low by hiring third-world-country surrogates, assuming human cloning can be made to work. The reason to control and regulate such tech is the likelihood of birth-defects.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Uterine transplants have been done before. I can't understand why someone would want to beat their body up that way but I don't think they should be prohibited.

 

[Jarhyn]

Uterine transplants have been done before. I can't understand why someone would want to beat their body up that way but I don't think they should be prohibited.

I can't rightly understand why I want to do it to myself so badly, either.

But there it is! I have no choice but to have this insane desire to give of myself that way. It would probably be better for the world than any of the other life I want to create.

 

[steve_bank]

My first response is bizzare.

 

[bilby]

We don't want folks being able to just grow a bunch of hydroponic Hitler clones on the down-low or whatever

Unless they’re planning to also clone an abusive father, a First World War, and a central Europe with rampant anti-Jewish public opinion, it seems unlikely that a Hitler clone would cause any problems beyond those caused by any random person.

 

[Bomb#20]

Unless they’re planning to also clone an abusive father, a First World War, and a central Europe with rampant anti-Jewish public opinion, it seems unlikely that a Hitler clone would cause any problems beyond those caused by any random person.

Crimes against humanity aren't the only concern here -- don't forget crimes against art.

 

[steve_bank]

I wonder if there is a medical ethics review.

Who knows where that will lead, with a lot of negative possibilities.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.