One of the world’s leading fertility experts says society should expect to see the first babies born to transgender mothers in the very near future.
How amazing is that?
According to Dr Richard Paulson, President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, women who began life as men will be able to receive donated wombs and attempt to begin pregnancy as early as ‘tomorrow’, writes The Telegraph.
Dr Paulson said ‘trans medicine’ had now become ‘mainstream’ and those who’d undergone gender reassignment surgery would inevitably want to be involved.
He also said there was ‘no anatomical reason’ why the procedure would not be successful, saying:
You could do it tomorrow. There would be additional challenges, but I don’t see any obvious problem that would preclude it.
I personally suspect there are going to be trans women who are going to want to have a uterus and will likely get the transplant.
While men and women have a different shaped pelvis, there would nevertheless be room for an implanted womb.
However, transgender women would have to give birth via cesarean section, he said, because of the shape of the womb.
Since 2014 there have been ‘at least five babies’ have been born to women who had received womb transplants in Sweden.
There are womb transplant programmes in Europe – and in the UK, doctors have ‘permission by the regulator’ to begin their own charity-funded programmes.
British experts have warned pregnancy in transgender women may be ‘unethical’ as it would be ‘safer for the child to be born via a surrogate mother’.
Experts reportedly advised if womb transplantation for ‘natural women’ – i.e. people born as women – becomes freely available on the NHS, hospitals may have to offer it to transgender women due to ‘equalities legislation’.
Transplanting a womb is a complicated, lengthy procedure and only a small number of women have undergone the procedure so far.
Professor Julian Savulescu, a Philosopher and bioethical specialist at Oxford University, said:
Uterine transplantation represents a real risk to the fetus, and future child. We ought avoid exposing fetuses and future children to unnecessary significant risks.
Although technically possible to perform the procedure, you would also need to be very confident the uterus would function normally during pregnancy.
Uterine rupture could cause the death or permanent disablement of the fetus.
He also said he believed public resources should ‘not be used to fund the procedure for transgender women’, although it is unclear why he thinks that.
In the UK, around 7,000 women a year are born without a womb, while others are forced to have theirs removed due to a number of conditions, including cancer.
Hayden Cross, who was born a woman, made history in the UK when he gave birth to a baby girl after falling pregnant thanks to a sperm donor.
He did have to put his full sex change on hold but said he’d always wanted his own family.
Watch his interview with Lorraine Kelly here:
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Amazing.
