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1 week Ago
Would you, female reader, donate your womb to your sister so she could have a baby? It would be quite the challenge. Grace Davidson, the 36-year-old British woman who has recently given birth to her first child, was born without a womb. Both her sisters offered her theirs when she was hoping for a transplant.
The transplanted womb came from her sister Amy, then 40, who had had two children and felt no further use for her uterus. But the operation to remove it was quite painful, with a risk of complications, and Amy took some time to recover. Grace had waited ten years to have a transplant and the operation took 17 hours.
She became pregnant through IVF and there was much rejoicing when her daughter Amy – named after her aunt – was born at the end of February. (Her second name is Isabel, after the consultant who co-led the transplant procedure.) Read more The baby’s appearance is a triumph of modern medicine (65 infants worldwide have now been born from 135 transplanted wombs).
Richard Smith, the surgeon leading the team enabling the birth at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London, said the successful delivery brought “new hope” to couples everywhere who are seeking womb transplants. The sibling relationship between Grace Davidson and her sister Amy Purdie must now be especially close and perhaps complex. Grace will always owe her big sister a big favour.
Grace’s husband, Angus, is in awe of the altruism of his sister-in-law’s gift. Baby Amy will also be especially connected to her aunt and even to her cousins. The birth of a baby should always bring joy.
But do some people feel a certain reactive discomfort when presented with these new frontiers of reproductive biology? Baby Amy Isabel Davidson is a symbol of all that is good in fertility advances What could be next in this developing field – foetal transplants? Men being equipped with wombs? Women in poorer countries selling their wombs? For every positive scientific advance, there are questions about ethics, experimentation or exploitation. IVF has been successful for many, but clinics have been criticised for over-promising and adding unnecessary costs. Robert Winston, the test-tube baby pioneer, has long criticised the money-driven aspect of some in the industry, as well as expressing concern about “designer babies”.
Just recently, a medical journal associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology highlighted the need for more “spare” human bodies for biological research material. This is not linked with the present situation of womb transplantation, but it is an indicator of topics discussed in medical research and experimentation, and where the boundaries – if any – might lie. MIT Technology Review suggested that “bodyoids” – spare parts developed from human biological material – could alleviate organ shortages and reduce animal vivisection.
Perhaps the future of biological sciences will reveal endless possibilities. There can always be a dark side to what occurs with the human body As it happens, my own late sister, Ursula, was a victim of a “spare parts” criminal trade after she died in New York City more than 20 years ago. She chose cremation, but the ashes we were given afterwards were not hers: the New York Police Department ascertained that her body parts had been sold off by a criminal group trading in the medical plundering of human bodies.
There can always be a dark side to what occurs with the human body – a theme so chillingly explored in Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein . The birth of baby Amy was carried out under the highest ethical standards and attests to the altruistic co-operation of a family, as well as heralding new fields in reproductive medicine. (One woman in 5,000 is said to have MRKH syndrome; that is, born without a womb.
) Pregnancy has been made possible by treatments such as IVF. Photo: stock image It is also an example of the determination of women such as Grace Davidson to become mothers. She was willing to endure any wait, go through any gruelling tests, proceed through a carefully monitored pregnancy, just to hold her own child – “the greatest gift” – in her arms.
(Her husband was open to having a child by surrogacy, but Grace did not like the idea of another woman carrying her baby.) There are still unwanted pregnancies, but the limelight in the field of reproductive biology has switched to addressing infertility Being deliriously happy with the birth of their daughter, Grace and Angus hope to have a second child. That aspiration is another tribute to the sibling bond, from which this mother has so benefited.
And then the uterus which has so helpfully serviced both sisters will be discarded, lest it become a source of infection, or even cancer. It’s interesting to reflect that when I was involved in campaigns to legalise contraception in Ireland, there was such an emphasis on “unwanted pregnancy” and “unwanted babies”. There are still unwanted pregnancies, but the limelight in the field of reproductive biology has switched to addressing infertility and answering the longings of those who yearn for parenthood.
Birth control is now low-level; fertility practice is high-status. Perhaps it was always the case throughout the ages – that some folk had more children than they could cope with, while other were saddened at having none. Today, we feel we have the right to a choice, which nature doesn’t always provide.
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