Columbia’s medical association has apologised after being accused of endorsing a controversial idea that the bodies of brain stem dead women could be used to carry surrogate pregnancies, reports the Telegraph.
The Colombian Medical College published an article which referenced a November 2022 paper from Norwegian philosophy professor, Anna Smajdor, in which she argues that using the uteruses of women who previously gave consent but are now clinically brain dead to carry surrogate pregnancies to full term ‘deserves serious consideration’.
Where did this idea come from?
Smajdor, who works for the University of Oslo, refers to this idea as ‘whole body gestational donation’ or ‘WBGD’ – a concept first proposed by an Israeli researcher in 2000. In the abstract of the paper, which was published in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Smajdor writes: ‘It seems plausible that some people would be prepared to consider donating their whole bodies for gestational purposes just as some people donate parts of their bodies for organ donation.’
‘We already know that pregnancies can be successfully carried to term in brain-dead women. There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not be possible’. The bodies of brain stem dead women would need to be kept functionally alive using a ventilator, something Smajdor recognises is ‘a disturbing prospect’ and one which involves ‘treating the patient’s dead body as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself.’
This however, she argues, is already a part of our existing process to donate organs from a dead person to an alive one.
What has the response been?
As news of the paper has circulated, many voices online vocalised their concern at the thought of using a brain stem dead woman’s body to carry a foetus. ‘Only in a woman-hating society would using brain dead women as living wombs be up for discussion. This is how it starts, how it ends is legislators making this law,’ tweeted Dr Charlotte Proudman, Director of feminist campaigning organisation Right to Equality.
Responding to the The Colombian Medical College’s article, Colombian member of Congress Jennifer Pedraza said: ‘Women are not utensils to be thrown away after use, women have human rights, even if some people forget this’.
What else is important to know?
Smajdor proposes that women give consent to having their bodies used in this way ahead of it becoming a reality. This, she writes, could be achieved by tweaking the existing organ donation framework.
These vary from country to country – in England there is an an ‘opt out’ system for organ donation, which means most adults are assumed to consent have consented to their organs being harvested for other people in the event of their death, unless they have recorded a decision to not donate. Your family would be involved before any organ harvesting took place, however.
Smajdor argues that if the current protocols are acceptable for organ donation, then they should be acceptable for ‘whole body gestational donation,’ perhaps ‘with additional public information campaigns’.
In Smajdor’s conclusion, she says that her argument can be viewed as a ‘thought experiment’ – but that if it is viewed as ‘outrageous,’ then these could raise questions about the future of organ donation from dead bodies.
‘Of course, this proposal may seem shocking to some people,’ she writes. ‘Nevertheless, as I have shown, if we accept that our current approach to organ donation and reproductive medicine are sound, WBGD donation seems to follow relatively smoothly from procedures that we are already undertaking separately. What I put forward here can be viewed as a thought experiment on one hand. But if we regard WBGD as being clearly outrageous, this suggests we have some uncomfortable questions to answer about the future of cadaveric organ donation.’
At first, The Colombian Medical College defended the article referencing the paper, saying that it was not ‘representative’ of its own views. On Wednesday last week, it apologised.
