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posted by martyb on Monday November 06 2017, @02:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the "tomorrow"-give-or-take-nine-months dept.

Richard Paulson, President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, has said that transgender women could give birth as soon as "tomorrow" using donated wombs:

Those born with male assigned sex organs cannot conceive children biologically; however, this may soon change, at least according to one fertility expert. Transgender women—those who were assigned male at birth—could give birth as early as "tomorrow," Richard Paulson, an obstetrician-gynecologist and the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said, according to The Telegraph. Thanks to advances in transgender medicine, donated wombs may be able to help transgender women conceive on their own, Paulson said during the society's annual conference in San Antonio, Texas.

Since at least 1999, transgender men have successfully given birth to healthy children, The Washington Post [archive] reports. More recently, Trystan Reese, a transgender man and his partner Biff Chaplow, gave birth to a healthy child last August. Despite their successes, the process is much more complex for transgender women. Primarily because a man's pelvis is a different shape than a woman's, making the birth much more complicated. Still, Paulson insists that it's possible, but notes the birth must be conducted via cesarean section.

"There would be additional challenges, but I don't see any obvious problem that would preclude it," Paulson said. "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."

Only eight children have been born worldwide to mothers (born female) who had a uterine transplant, with the first such birth occurring in 2014. As we have reported, the first attempted uterine transplant in the U.S. failed last year.

Here's a 2016 article on the topic at Scientific American, which notes that surrogacy (which can have its own problems) is illegal in some countries. The article raises the question of unnecessary risks to the patient, as well as unknown risks posed to the fetus by a "potentially unstable biological environment" modulated by hormone treatments.

Not mentioned: the prospect of creating an artificial embryo using the DNA of two biological men, which is expected to be possible imminently (predicted by researchers two years ago to be available in 2017). Since men have both an X and Y sex chromosome, they should be able to have either a son or a daughter using such a technique.

If an artificial womb is developed in the future and it has a lesser chance of causing complications than a traditional pregnancy, would it be unethical for a woman to conceive a child naturally? Fetal lambs have been grown for up to four weeks in an artificial womb, so we may get an answer in the coming decades.

Also at the Sacremento Bee.


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  • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday November 06 2017, @03:12PM (12 children)

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Monday November 06 2017, @03:12PM (#593077) Journal

    Well, let's make sure to apply this same logic to cisgendered women who do not have functioning wombs. Some doctors did a womb transplant once (too lazy to link, find it yourself), but never again! It's too risky! And actually, being somewhat serious, there really are too many people on this planet.

    There again, my position has long been that according to the logic you folks and feminists use, cisgendered women should be forcefully transitioned to male and injected with testosterone if they do not give live birth to a child by, say, age 25. C-section doesn't count. Has to be a live birth, since that is how you determine whether somebody is really a woman.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 06 2017, @03:22PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday November 06 2017, @03:22PM (#593088) Journal

    Reply to my comments, lol.

    As noted in the summary, there have been successful uterine transplants and babies born as a result of those transplants. I think there was even a case where the baby was born and then the failing uterine tissue was removed afterwards (need to confirm). The failure of the transplant in the U.S. could be a result of "inexperience" or just reflective of the high complication rate the procedure has.

    Global population estimates show population leveling off eventually. It has been argued however that 50+ year estimates are bullshit and that you should take any such estimates with a grain of salt after 25+ years. But predictions based on birth/death rates and other factors suggest that countries like Japan, South Korea, and China are going to see serious population declines in the future. China could decline to 800 million population for example. If they don't mess around with immigration, then those countries could see serious declines in national power and prestige that go along with the population loss. We like to fuss about there being too many people in the U.S. or the world, but at the end of the day a high population can be useful - particularly in war. So there you have it, three countries that should get on this technology right away. Maybe make a few super soldiers on the side.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @03:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @03:27PM (#593094)

    apply this same logic to cisgendered women

    From the previous discussion on the transplant case, bradley13 said:
    "Imho, this is an unethical medical procedure"

    https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=12589&cid=317054#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @03:42PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @03:42PM (#593110)

    Only a snowflake insists on using "cisgendered" when referring to real men and women.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @04:07PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @04:07PM (#593132)

      Do you have a suggestion for a better technical term that doesn't invalidate the identity of some participants in the conversation? I suppose since you're a natural-born straight white male you are entitled to whatever opinion popped into your head first, but civil discourse relies on politeness and respect.

      Invalidating others is rude. As Grandma used to say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @05:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @05:36PM (#593183)

        Do you have a suggestion for a better technical term that doesn't invalidate the identity of some participants in the conversation?

        Why do we need a descriptor? Modifiers in English are used to distinguish things from the norm, thus the existence of the modifier "trans" from "transsexual".

      • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:00PM (#593251)

        I agree with GP. It's real, natural, or just men and women. You don't have to label it and thus make it a tautology. I'm sorry about your "feelings" but it is true and fact. Either it matters that these are the natural men and women OR NOTHING MATTERS. I fully understand that the goal of Cultural Marxism is the total destruction of everything that is found "problematic," but seriously fuck-off.

        Trying to label the natural sexes with extraneous label is meant to somehow make them "equal" with whatever unnatural process someone else is undergoing to; but they are not nor will they ever be. Sorry for your feelings, but getting others to go along with your delusion will only work for so long, people who have decided for whatever reason to switch their gender identity deep down know that it will never magically change. There is and always will be a difference.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:33PM (#593266)

        Do you have a suggestion for a better technical term

        1) Men
        2) Women

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:28PM (#593700)

        As AC so eloquently put it - only the abnormal need special descriptors. Men and women don't need that silly "cisgendered", because we're all pretty much more or less "normal". When we need more precise descriptors, terms like blonde, short, skinny, dimwitted, and asshole work just fine. Cisgendered is meaningless.

        Civil discourse, you say? Stop calling us names that we think are stupid, and maybe we'll call you "trannie" less often.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday November 06 2017, @08:29PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday November 06 2017, @08:29PM (#593288) Journal

      I'm cisgender and i like the term. It's precisely because it helps to have a word for the normal (read: most common) case because that stops certain kinds of bigotry from getting off the ground. The word has origins in chemistry, so it's not like it was invented out of thin air. We have, for example, cis and trans dichloroethylene, both C2H2CL2, but differing in where the chlorine atoms go.

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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday November 06 2017, @03:51PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday November 06 2017, @03:51PM (#593115) Homepage Journal

    While your second paragraph is needlessly inflammatory, I completely agree with the first one. Uterus transplants are also inappropriate for cisgendered women.

    For that matter, I submit that there is a more general problem with people who spend years and zillions of dollars on ever-more-extreme fertility treatments. Becoming utterly obsessed with one's (in)ability to have children - after a certain point, it's all about the parents and no longer about the (potential) kids. If someone is that obsessed, they may just be mentally ill: Psychiatric Illness and Infertility: Cause or Effect? [womensmentalhealth.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Monday November 06 2017, @07:00PM (1 child)

    by jimtheowl (5929) on Monday November 06 2017, @07:00PM (#593249)
    " that according to the logic you folks and feminists use"

    Perhaps at some point you had a conversation you are discontent with, but it is no excuse to project the position of a few to everybody else in a group to suit your argument.

    My position is that you can disagree with someone, but no one gets to force anything on anybody.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:30PM (#593701)

      Heh. I farted, and you can't escape it. You will be forced to smell it once it permeates through the 'net.