Occasionally we tag one of our articles “reproductive revolution” because it exemplifies how far law and technology take us once sex has been detached from reproduction. This week’s tale comes from India. A team at Galaxy Care Hospital in Pune has performed India’s first successful uterus transplant. A 45-year-old mother donated her womb to her 28-year-old daughter who eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

Arrangements like this are no longer newsworthy, but what made the transplant necessary? It turns out that the young woman had had at least two abortions and these had damaged her uterus. Frankly, I find this fertility-at-any-cost approach a bit bizarre.

But not more bizarre than some of the other stories: the Dutch sperm donor who may have fathered 1000 children, the Japanese man who is raising 13 children by commercial surrogates from Thailand, the 65-year-old German grandmother who gave birth to quads, the German zoophile who is in a “relationship” with his Alsatian because “Animals are much easier to understand than women” and so on.

The reproductive revolution was originally intended to give loving couples the joy of having children of their own. How differently it has turned out. As they say, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”

Michael Cook
So many unseen changes …
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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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