Calls for transgender women born male to be given womb transplants on the NHS so they can have kids – but some critics slam idea
Those against the idea say it will change 'the meaning of motherhood and womanhood'
TRANSGENDER women born male should be given womb transplants on the NHS so they can have children, claim leading doctors.
Critics have slammed the suggestion that the controversial procedure should be funded by taxpayers - putting more pressure on the NHS cash crisis.
While others say it will "revolutionise reproduction" by giving gay and straight men the chance to experience carrying their child for nine months.
And it could be possible in less than a decade.
Dr Amel Alghranim, who is leading the debate, told Mail on Sunday: "It could allow couples to jointly share the reproductive burdens and joys of pregnancy.
"Homosexual couples may also wish to procreate in this fashion, while single men may opt for it to avoid surrogacy."
But Women’s campaigner Laura Perrins disagreed, saying: "Most taxpayers will not think this is a good use of resources.
"It raises profound ethical and moral issues that will have an impact on women’s rights. It will impinge on the meaning of motherhood and womanhood."
British doctors hope to start their own charity-funded project to give donor wombs to at least three women in the UK this year.
Since 2014 there have been five babies born to womb-less women following the pioneering work at Gothenburg University in Sweden - triggering calls for tests on men.
Consultant gynaecologist Dr Arianna D’Angelo, of the NHS’s Wales Fertility Institute, said: "We already have fertility preservation for transgender people, to give them the possibility to have their own genetic child.
"So I don’t see much of a difference between that and actually delivering their own child."
In January Hayden Cross became the first British man to reveal he was pregnant.
The former Asda worker, born a girl 20 years ago, is legally male and begun hormone treatment after using donor sperm.
Hayden, of Gloucester, was on the NHS gender transition process, which costs an average of £29,000.
His physical switch — using male hormones which have set in motion irreversible changes — was already under way and he was receiving gender-change counselling at a local clinic run by the 2gether NHS Foundation Trust.
He said at the time: “People think you can’t be a man and have a baby but it’s not that simple."
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