I'm sure you folks have heard about this:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/15/uterus.transplant.ap/index.html
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- A New York hospital is taking steps to offer the first uterus transplant in the United States, a radical experiment that might allow women whose wombs were removed or are defective to bear children.
The wombs would come from dead donors, just as most other organs for transplants do, and would be removed after the recipient gives birth so she would not need anti-rejection drugs her whole life.
Is this an ethical can of worms? Not only would there likely be potential medical hazard to the recipient of the donated womb, but also to the fetus that begins to grow inside if the organ was rejected. Not to mention the harsh medications that a woman would have to take throughout pregnancy to bring the child to term.
Is this a path that medical science, and ultimately the human race, should travel? Traditional donation of organs has most often been to save lives. The recipient needs the organ to survive but this is not so in the case of womb transplants. I realize that there are transplants to enhance quality of life too. For instance, eyes are transplanted and they are not a life or death procedure. They allow blind people to see. Simple. So, should barren women be given the chance to bear children? Or should nature be allowed to determine (so much as it does now anyway) who can and cannot?
What do you think? And would you ever accept a donated uterus if your situation came to that?