The first successful birth to a woman who had undergone a womb transplant highlights both opportunities resulting from new technology and the need for caution, said a Catholic bioethics expert.
“The womb can be recognized as an organ that serves a particular function,” explained Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
He said the transplantation of a healthy womb to a woman who lacks a womb because of birth defects or disease can be licit and “would be analogous to a situation where a kidney fails to function” and a donor provides a healthy organ to someone in need.
Recently, a Swedish woman gave birth to a baby boy after receiving a transplanted womb donated by a post-menopausal friend in her 60s. It was the first successful womb transplant to be coupled with a pregnancy, after two attempts by other medical teams that failed to lead to successful pregnancies.
Fr. Pacholczyk explained that while the number of couples who could benefit from this therapy “is relatively small,” the transplant itself opens the possibility for a new morally acceptable therapy.
Transplanting the uterus alone could be morally acceptable, he said, as long as the transplant of ovaries and sex cells were not also done, respecting the uniqneness of each person's genetic information.
For such a womb transplant to be completely licit, Fr. Pacholczyk said, in-vitro fertilization could not be used, and children would need to be conceived naturally “through the marital act.”
Full Story: Women without wombs: New technology offers progress, warning
Source:Catholic News Agency