• Ethics

Williams and Wilkinson provide an interesting paper on the latest breakthrough in the arena of assisted reproductive technologies, namely uterus transplants (UTx). The authors ask the important question of whether once UTx becomes safe enough to be offered as clinical treatment for those suffering from absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI), publicly funded healthcare systems (such as the UK National Health Service (NHS)) should bear the financial cost of the procedure.

Rather than arguing the case for why UTx should be publicly funded, the authors instead focus on arguments on why the state should not fund UTx. They address three arguments against publicly funding UTx: (1) UTx should not be publicly funded because doing so would be inconsistent with the governments’ obligations to prevent climate change and environmental pollution; (2) UTx should not be funded as it does not treat a disorder and is not medically necessary and (3) public funding for UTx should be denied because of the availability of cheaper alternatives to parenthood, such as adoption and surrogacy. They argue all three are tenuous and conclude that the case for ruling out public funding for UTx is weak.

I concurred with the excellent …