Plans to do the first uterus transplant in the US are freaking out some people. The procedure–where a donor's womb in transplanted into a woman so that she may have a baby–was attempted in Saudi Arabia in 2002 but complications required the organ to be removed before an embryo was implanted. Dr. Giuseppe Del Priore and his colleagues from New York Downtown Hospital hope to try it later this year with a uterus from a deceased donor. The Washington Post reports that some experts feel such a procedure is ethically dicey. From the article:
They question whether the procedure has been tested enough on animals and whether the benefit of being able to carry a pregnancy outweighs the risks for the woman and fetus…
"This raises a set of very difficult medical and ethical questions," said Thomas Murray, who heads the Hastings Center, a biomedical ethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y. "I think it's very questionable. This would be very hard to justify…"
"It is the convergence of two fields (transplant surgery and reproductive medicine) that are already embedded in large ethical disputes," said Lori Andrews, a bioethicist at the Chicago-Kent School of Law. "This represents the worst of both worlds…"
Del Priore and others defend the effort, saying the procedure will be attempted only after careful examination by independent experts.
"I don't think it's really a doctor's role to tell a patient that their values are not important. It's up to us as doctors to advise our patients and safely escort them to the best life that they can have," Del Priore said.
