> A new frontier, uterus transplants are seen as a source of hope for women who cannot give birth because they were born without a uterus or had to have it removed because of cancer, other illness or complications from childbirth. Researchers estimate that in the United States, 50,000 women might be candidates.
> The transplants are meant to be temporary, left in place just long enough for a woman to have one or two children, and then removed so she can stop taking the immune-suppressing drugs needed to prevent organ rejection.
> The transplants are now experimental, with much of the cost covered by research funds. But they are expensive, and if they become part of medical practice, will probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is not clear that insurers will pay, and Dr. Testa acknowledged that many women who want the surgery will not be able to afford it.
While the science is amazing, why go this route rather than having a surrogate mother? I've heard the price of a surrogate is $30-50K.
I think a big factor in the cases discussed in the article is that these women were told they would never ever have their own children. Unlike women who are "infertile" (which is usually just a measure of probability, and not a binary diagnosis), women who do not have a uterus obviously understand that there isn't a probability factor for getting pregnant. But then tell a woman with such a diagnosis that there is an experimental procedure that will allow her to fully experience what she had always been told was not possible. It is more for her than just wanting a baby at that point-- the procedure offers her everything she was told she could not have in terms of giving birth to a child.