Womb transplant: Christian Medical Fellowship and CARE raise concerns about ethics of giving wombs to transgender patients

The UK's first womb transplant has raised ethical questions about the possibility of the same operation being provided for men who transition gender.
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By Philip Bradfield
Published 25th Aug 2023, 11:13 BST

Professor Richard Smith, from Imperial College London, carried out the womb transplant alongside colleague Isabel Quiroga, from the Oxford Transplant Centre, on a woman whose sister was the living donor, in February.

Hannah Vaughan, from Cheshire, who received the womb, said this week that the transplant has given her a “glimmer of hope” that she can one day carry her own child, after she was born without a womb. About 50 babies have been born worldwide as a result of womb transplants.

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Experts have previously raised the possibility that the breakthrough could see men who have transitioned gender to women also benefit from the operation.

The surgical team behind the UK's first womb transplant. Surgeons have performed the UK's first womb transplant on a woman whose sister was the living donor. The 34-year-old married woman received the womb - also called the uterus - during an operation lasting nine hours and 20 minutes carried out at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Photo: Womb Transplant UK/PA WireThe surgical team behind the UK's first womb transplant. Surgeons have performed the UK's first womb transplant on a woman whose sister was the living donor. The 34-year-old married woman received the womb - also called the uterus - during an operation lasting nine hours and 20 minutes carried out at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Photo: Womb Transplant UK/PA Wire
The surgical team behind the UK's first womb transplant. Surgeons have performed the UK's first womb transplant on a woman whose sister was the living donor. The 34-year-old married woman received the womb - also called the uterus - during an operation lasting nine hours and 20 minutes carried out at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Photo: Womb Transplant UK/PA Wire

Speaking to the PA news agency, Prof Smith estimated this could be at least ten years away.

“My own sense is if there are transgender transplants that are going to take place, they are many years off,” he said. “There are an awful lot of steps to go through. My suspicion is a minimum of 10 to 20 years.”

Dr Paige Porrett, a leading surgeon who established the uterus/womb transplant programme at the University of Alabama said this week that it was “medically possible”.

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But Dr Mark Pickering, Chief Executive of the UK's Christian Medical Fellowship, raised concerns.

“This is an amazing development to restore function to female bodies who are unable to bear children naturally," he said. "Surgical experts are right to emphasise the significant technical challenges of implanting a functioning female uterus into a body that is biologically and structurally male."

He added: “Beyond the significant remaining technical challenges, we should also step back and consider the ethics. This potential further development is not about fair treatment under the Equality Act. It would be primarily about further self-actualisation of the internal identity of a trans-identifying male. We must also strongly consider the welfare of any children born into such situations. There is significant risk of any children born in such situations becoming commodified, and having consequences for them mental and emotional health that may not become clear for decades.”

Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE) , a social policy charity with offices in London, Scotland and Northern Ireland, raised concerns about such "experimentation" on an unborn child and about "erasing" women.

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Policy Officer Dr Rebecca Stevenson, said: “The idea of a womb transplant for men who identify as women is medically dangerous. Even if it could be carried out, hormonal and structural qualities inherent to male human beings would place an unborn child at huge risk. No competent doctor should condone such experimentation.

“It’s also deeply offensive. Human males do not menstruate. They cannot get pregnant. They cannot sustain a pregnancy and give birth. Only human females can do these things. This idea is supported by activists promoting a controversial ideology that denies biology, and erases women.”