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It's a sign that a much-needed procedure in South Africa is really working.
The recipient of the world's first successful penis transplant will soon be a father, according to the South African outlet News24. His surgeons were recently informed that his girlfriend is pregnant.
The surgery took place just six months ago, three years after the 21-year-old had lost his own organ after infection caused by a botched ceremonial circumcision. Stellenbosch University urologist, Prof. Andre van der Merwe, who led the historic surgical team, explained at a March news conference that South Africa has a particular need for such a surgery: Members of the Xhosa ethnic group often practice adult circumcision, and poor sanitation leads to some 250 amputations every year.
To get permission to use the penis that has now facilitated a pregnancy, van der Merwe's team had to fashion a new one out of abdominal skin for the deceased donor to be buried with. One day soon, we may not need donors at all: Last year, researchers reported progress in lab-grown penises built with the recipient's own cells to avoid organ rejection.
This is good news for men who lose their penises to cancer and accidents, too.
[Ed note: We recently ran a story about a woman who succeeded in having a Live Birth After Autograft of Ovarian Tissue Cryopreserved During Childhood.]
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Sunday June 14 2015, @05:41PM
Without the circumcision, he would be considered a child. His peers would openly treat him with contempt and he would be unable to marry or procreate, which defeats the purpose of avoiding the procedure. In ancient times an uncircumcised man having sex was a capital offence for both parties, according to my limited knowledge of the Bantu oral histories.
PS: Getting the witchdoctor* to do it would make some sense. Unfortunately these initiation "schools" tend to put any random schmuck in charge of performing the circumcisions. (Especially the illegal ones, of which there are many.) Many people nowadays get circumcised at a hospital before going. It is probably safer but carries its own risks, since the "schools" sometimes decide they don't accept such things and perform a second circumcision. You can imagine how that can end up.
Personally I'm against genital mutilation in all its forms (unless for good medical reasons) but try telling that to someone who believes that the ancestors insist.
* "Sangomas" object to being called witchdoctors.