Advocacy Group Slams Medical Association Paper for Seeking Taxpayer Funding to Transplant Uteruses in Men

A young girl at the annual New York City Pride March in New York City on June 25, 2023. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

A nonprofit advocacy slammed an American Medical Association (AMA) paper for suggesting that uterus transplants for men who identify as transgenders be subsidized using taxpayer funds.

The AMA paper, published in the organization’s “Journal of Ethics” in June, explored the issue of providing trans individuals with federal subsidies or insurance coverage benefits for uterus transplantation (UTx) procedures. UTx is a surgical procedure where a healthy uterus from a woman is transplanted to another person. The procedure has found success among women, suggesting that some transgenders may also seek it to gestate children or to consolidate their gender identity, AMA stated.

In 2017, a woman with a transplanted uterus gave birth to a baby for the first time in the United States. However, “no pregnancy has been achieved by UTx in a transwoman,” the paper said.

The cost of UTx in America is estimated to range from $100,000 to $300,000. Though some states require private insurers to pay for certain In vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, most insurers do not, the paper said. The federal government also does not subsidize fertility treatments except under a few circumstances, it pointed out.

The AMA paper argued a “case could be made that no moral obstacle stands in the way of justifying subsidies for UTx for some transwomen and transmen.”

In an Aug. 23 post, American Family Association (AFA) called the AMA paper “a dangerous proposal” as it suggests “taxpayers should pay the bill for biological men who choose to get a uterus transplant (UTx) from dead women.”

AFA encouraged people to sign a petition asking AMA to stop pushing subsidization of UTx procedures for men and consider the consequences of “unnatural and irreversible gender-modifying procedures that disfigure the human body.”

As of 3:30 p.m. ET, Aug. 29, the petition had collected over 32,100 signatories.

“Sounding more like something from a Frankenstein movie, the AMA paper says there are no moral or ethical reasons why you and I shouldn’t pony up our taxpayer dollars to help transgenders improve their “mental health,” the AFA said.

“By floating these unreasonable and foolish proposals, the American Medical Association has basically exchanged the Hippocratic Oath for social and partisan activism. Americans have always expected doctors to follow the adage, ‘First, do no harm.’”

Despite publishing the paper, the AMA said that the organization maintains “no position” on the issue.

“The AMA Journal of Ethics is editorially independent from the AMA and the viewpoints within the article are solely those of the authors, as the disclaimer on the article indicates,” the organization said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

“The AMA has no position, ‘existing or anticipated,’ on the issue of uterus transplantation in transgender individuals.”

“AMA policy is established through robust debate and the democratic processes of our House of Delegates, and the work of the AMA remains focused on the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.”

A 2021 study done on perceptions and motivations for uterus transplant among transgenders found that 94 percent of such individuals believed the ability to gestate and give birth “would enhance perceptions of their femininity.”

In an Aug. 15 interview with the Washington Examiner, Dr. Martin Makary, professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, criticized the AMA for having “chosen activist positions on this delicate topic” rather than “funding objective medical studies on transgender medicine.”

“Why don’t they fund a study on the 10-year regret rate of children who undergo transitioning surgery? What is the suicide rate among those who undergo aggressive hormone or surgical treatment versus long-term talk therapy?”

“Medicine has many crisis issues today—overtreatment, the medical-industrial complex, stagnant cancer research, and skyrocketing healthcare costs … It’s odd that the AMA is skipping over these giant issues to focus on uterus transplants for transgender people,” he said.

Uterine Transplants, Blurring Gender Divisions

The AMA paper comes as the possibility of transferring the uterus from females to males is being actively promoted by transgender activists.

In January, a video of a community navigator at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UMPC) Children’s Hospital came to the spotlight for a discussion on uterine transplants to trans individuals from “live donors.”

Demonstrators reach out to Los Angelinos about complications associated with gender reassessment surgeries in downtown Los Angeles on March 12, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Alicyn Simpson, the community navigator who is transgender, said that a live donation would come from a “person who was assigned female at birth but identified as a transgender man.”

“I have these parts. I don’t want them, you want them, you need them. So what if I gave them to you?” she said describing the mindset of such potential donors.

There is also an attempt to blur the male-female binary sex identity. During a hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee last September, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, medical director for primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, claimed that “men can have pregnancies, especially trans men.”

“Somebody with a uterus may have the capability of becoming pregnant, whether they’re a woman or a man … That doesn’t make a difference,” he said.

When Mr. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) countered Mr. Kumar, saying that “if a person has a uterus and is born female, they are a woman.”

However, the medical director went on to insist that “Not every person with a uterus has the ability to become pregnant … This is medicine.”

Promoting Transgender Agenda

The exploration of uterine transplants is happening as the transgender agenda is being pushed across the United States, even targeting children.

In December, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked school officials to promote the LGBT agenda on campuses using a tool that categorizes people depending on how “inclusive” they are of such gender identities.

In an interview with The Epoch Times in May, women’s rights activist Kay Yang said that transgender ideologies are being pushed by corporations and organizations to create a new economy. She called it a coordinated effort being promoted by organizations like the World Economic Forum (WEF).

“And it’s why corporations, government organizations, and nonprofits have joined forces to push acceptance of transgenderism on a largely unwilling populace,” Ms. Yang said.

A former LGBT activist, Ms. Yang left activism when she realized it was leading children to normalize sexual acts and make them accept certain sexual ideas.

Transgenderism teaches a fundamental separation between the soul and body, proposing that if a man’s soul or mind is female, then his body can be customized to becoming a female, she said. The aim of such propaganda is to sell intensive body modification, the activist added.

“Make your own body. Make your own gender. They’re priming those young people. They’re grooming them to accept that. The next thing you can do is implant something in your brain, implant something in your arm,” Ms. Yang stated.