A decade after the first live birth after a uterus transplant, experts are still debating the legal and ethical questions surrounding the procedure.
Questions debated at a recent PET (Progress Educational Trust) event (see BioNews 1266) have been covered in an article in MIT Technology Review. Questions included who should bear the cost of surgeries; should greater preference be given to supporting children who already exist; and is there a 'right to gestate'?
Dr Natasha Hammond-Browning, a legal scholar at Cardiff University raised the question of whether by pursuing uterus transplantation as a fertility treatment, we might reinforce ideas that define a woman's value in terms of her reproductive potential.
Also under discussion was whether trans women, with their different pelvic anatomy, are being given false hope of bearing their own children. At the event, Professor Mats Brännström, who performed the first surgery, and Professor J Richard Smith, who co-led the first uterus transplant performed in the UK agreed that it may be possible at some point, but noted that there is a huge amount of work to be done first.
