That science and technology advance is usually good news because they allow our lives to be somewhat easier and because they help us solve vital problems that otherwise would have no solution. However, this does not mean that every novelty has its associated debate and usually arises when advances are applied where, in principle, it seems that it should not be done.
I'm talking about the uterus transplants, a technique that allowed a woman to be a mother a year ago that would otherwise never have been. A uterus was transplanted, a pregnancy was achieved and the first baby born in a womb outside the mother was born.
Research in this field continues to progress and now the surgeon who made this feat possible says that men who want to be a mother can also, if they undergo the same intervention.
The story of Mats Brännström, an innovative and controversial surgeon
His name in Mats Brännström and as they tell us in La Voz de Galicia, in 1999 he became famous for being the first surgeon in the world to transplant a hand. Following this news, an Australian woman told her if it would be possible to transplant a uterus, because she could perhaps be a mother at some time. The woman died of cancer shortly after and could not fulfill her dream.
But Brännström was clear that he wanted to make it happen and in 2013 he performed the first uterus transplant. In many cases, the transplanted uterus is that of the mother of the woman, that is, the grandmother of the babies, which is a controversial fact that seems incredible for give birth to their babies with the uterus in which they were born and from which they were born.
A year later, the first baby was born, but there are more pregnancies resulting from this intervention. Success, of course, is not assured, because of 10 attempts, of 10 interventions, it has been achieved that the gestations come to fruition on 4 occasions.
That men can be mothers
Now they continue to work to ensure that the success rate is increasing, as it is a very complex surgery that led Brännström and his team to a 14-year investigation in which they were experimenting with small animals, and then move on to larger ones such as Pigs, sheep and monkeys. The future looks promising for these professionals, which in 2016 will open a uterus transplant center in which they will offer their services to all citizens of the European Union, services that will cost between 50,000 and 70,000 euros.
While this is happening, in Paris there is a new work group that is investigating the possibility of taking the womb of a woman who wants to have a sex change and become a man and transplant it to a man who, in the same situation, wants to have surgery to be a woman. That is to say, they want to add to the intervention of a man's sex change the possibility of transplanting a uterus so that, if he wishes, he can end up being a mother (or to men who already underwent that intervention before).
They estimate that it will be possible in 5 or 10 years, so by then the debate will be hot due to all the repercussions of an intervention that will be novel, but that deserves extensive ethical reflection.
Uterus of living women? And there is no rejection?
To date, all interventions have been carried out with wombs of living women. In case it is possible, and to reduce risks, they are also initiating a line of research that allows working with the uterus of a deceased donor woman (the uterus is removed faster and there is no need to worry about the risk of donor hemorrhage). In addition, they will work to reduce the intervention time, which is now 12 hours.
In reference to the possible rejection, Brännström explains that they take it into account, that they detect it quickly, and that they play with the advantage that the patient consumes immunosuppressants for a certain time, the time that goes from being transplanted until she is removed again, because once a mother, once it meets the objective, it can be removed again to avoid having to take medication that, in the long term, can be dangerous.
If the "We are not vessels" was controversial ...
A little more than a week ago we commented on the "We are not vessels" campaign against surrogacy or rented motherhood, so use a woman's body to house the baby of third parties and monetize it in some way, do business with it . If the wombs of rent already generate controversy, I do not want to imagine how much debate this advance of science will generate that extracts the womb of a living woman to temporarily implant it in another in order to be a mother. Or the womb of a deceased woman. Or implant it in a man who feels like a woman and wants to become one, even to be a mother. What do you think of all this?
