Fertility doctors in the U.K. are reportedly working on womb transplant procedures that would allow transgender people born as males, and also other men, to have babies.
Moreover, National Health Service doctors told The Mail on Sunday that taxpayers should fund such transplants, citing “equality enshrined in law.”
Dr. Amel Alghrani of Liverpool University said that such a transplant procedure is a real possibility, and explained that it could help not only transgender women have children, but also gay and straight men who “wanted to experience the joys of carrying a child.”
Alghrani further suggested that such a move would “revolutionize reproduction.”
For straight men who opt to have such a transplant, it would allow “for couples to jointly share the reproductive burdens and joys of pregnancy,” she said.
“Homosexual couples may also wish to procreate in this fashion, while single men may opt for it to avoid surrogacy.”
Women’s campaigner Laura Perrins slammed the suggestion, however, stating:
“Most taxpayers will not think this is a good use of resources.
It raises profound ethical and moral issues that will have an impact on women’s rights. It will impinge on the meaning of motherhood and womanhood.”
Gynaecologists have claimed that such a transplant is possible, pointing to the recent success of “uterine transplantation” in women.
The article noted that at least five babies have been born to womb-less women after receiving donor wombs at Gothenburg University in Sweden, which is considered one of the first steps in the controversial procedure.
Consultant gynaecologist Dr. Arianna D’Angelo of the NHS’ Wales Fertility Institute argued that are no ethical issues with womb transplants.
“We already have fertility preservation for transgender people, to give them the possibility to have their own genetic child,” D’Angelo said.
Dr. Francoise Shelfield, a clinical lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at University College London, commented, “I don’t see much of a difference between that and actually delivering their own child.”
“If we are saying we should have equality and we have legislation [defending the rights of transgender people], I do not see why not,” she said.
In America, some gender studies textbooks are set to teach college students about how self-identified men can have a baby, The Daily Caller reported last week.
“The Manly Art of Pregnancy,” as a chapter in the textbook Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies is titled, offers the pregnancy experience of the author, J. Wallace, born a female who now identifies as a man.
“Before I was pregnant, I feared that pregnancy would make me into a woman or a lady. But it didn’t; it made me more of a dude,” wrote Wallace.
Universities are set to use the textbook in question for the 2018 academic year.