Womb transplants mean more infertile cis women - and perhaps soon trans women and cis men - will be able to give birth to their own babies.
What it means: A Brazilian woman with no uterus has been able to give birth to her own baby because of a womb transplant from a dead body. (Womb transplants were already possible if the donor was alive). This is the first time this has ever happened - it’s been tried ten times before but all of those pregnancies miscarried.
Medical people everywhere are really excited about womb transplants. It gives more options to infertile cis women who don’t want to go down the surrogacy or adoption route. And some medics even think that mastering womb transplants means that eventually trans women and even cis men (men identifying as men who were also born as men) will be able to get pregnant too.
Womb transplants could make lots of people happy: infertility affects about 15 percent of hetrosexual couples. But they might also have implications for healthcare services and workplaces.
Womb transplants are expensive, so taxpayer-funded healthcare services like the NHS will need to decide if spending more on these sort of ‘optional’ procedures is a good use of its budget. And if workplaces don’t rethink their limited (or non-existent) paternal leave policies, men who want to try pregnancy might find it difficult to balance their healthcare needs with their job demands.
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