Tuesday 16 January 2007

US doctors plan 1st womb transplant

US doctors plan 1st womb transplant

New York: Many women cannot bear children because they either have a malfunctioning uterus or their wombs have been damaged due to cancer and other problems.

However, doctors in New York hospital plan on the first womb transplant in the United States. They are screening women who may be fertile enough to bear children, according to The Washington Post.

The womb can be removed after a first successful conception. So there is no need to take anti-rejection drugs through out life.

Said Giuseppe Del Priore of the New York Downtown Hospital, “The desire to have a child is a tremendous driving force for many women. We think we could help many women fulfill this very basic desire.”

However, objections have been trickling in from various quarters, according to the Post.

Many transplant, fertility specialists and medical ethicists have raised questions of whether the procedure has been tested successfully on animals and whether the transplant may put the woman and the foetus at risk.

"This raises a set of very difficult medical and ethical questions," Thomas H Murray, who heads the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank said.

He thinks, “it's very questionable” and would be “very hard to justify."

However, various experts have also opined that the plans highlight the unique status that childbearing holds in the United States.

They feel that with the availability of such options as adoption and surrogacy, women will go ahead to experience it.



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