Fertility preservation and sex reassignment: should reproductive rights cross gender boundaries?By Dr Vardit Ravitsky and Professor David Heyd | 15 May 2012
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_144876.aspDr Vardit Ravitsky is assistant professor in the bioethics programmes at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal and Professor David Heyd is Chaim Perelman professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Appeared in BioNews 656
Sex reassignment is an intricate and sensitive physiological, psychological, and social process that usually entails the loss of reproductive capacity. Reproductive technology can prevent this loss, but should it be used for that purpose? A recent case in Israel raises this question.
A young transgender man who was born as a female is requesting fertility preservation via ovarian tissue cryopreservation. The more routine technique of egg extraction is impossible since hormone replacement therapy has already disabled ovarian function.
The patient is about to go through sex reassignment surgery, and removal of the uterus and ovaries will be the first step of the surgical transition from female to male. He is requesting that the ovarian tissue removed during this procedure be preserved for possible future use (1).
