Is the American Medical Association still deserving of its name now that it has apparently abandoned science for left-wing activism?
The AMA is causing a stir with an article from the latest edition of its Journal of Ethics, in which it argues that American taxpayers should be required to cover the cost for men to get uterus transplants (UTx) in order to feel comfortable in their transgender identities — a procedure the journal acknowledges costs up to $300,000 a piece.
The argument by AMA is that men who identify as women would see improvements to their health if they were provided the ability to give birth by receiving a uterus transplant.
Referring to men who think they are women as “transwomen,” the authors of the piece write:
Even though there has been no uterus transplant to date in transwomen that we know of, some clinicians have maintained that there are no absolute barriers in anatomy, hormones, and obstetric considerations that would rule out the possibility of successful UTx in transwomen.
Transwomen wanting to gestate children can plausibly justify subsidy of UTx on a number of grounds.… Transwomen lack a trait (the ability to bear children) that may cause them to experience psychological dissonance in a way that undermines their health and well-being. The lack of a uterus also closes off the prospect of gestating a child in a way that is available to women as a class. It follows that lack of a uterus is an obstacle to full participation in the social goods attached to women’s identity.
The website wombtransplantuk.org notes that, as of June 1, 2023, approximately 100 uterus transplants have been performed around the world, and about 50 healthy babies have been born as a result of these.
As AMA acknowledges, the procedure has yet to be done on a man. But that fact didn’t dissuade the AMA authors from advocating that governments subsidize UTx for men.
“Even if there are limits on subsidies, the case could be made that no moral obstacle stands in the way of justifying subsidies for UTx for some transwomen and transmen, just as there seems to be no fully persuasive argument against gestating a child via UTx,” the piece concludes.
One AMA critic who condemned the latest literature from the organization is Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and author who serves as Mark Ravitch Chair in Gastrointestinal Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Speaking to Fox News, Makary accused AMA of taking the “activist” position and blasted the organization for suggesting that taxpayers should pick up the tab for transgenders.
“It is odd that the AMA is choosing to really focus on this activist position rather than fund the important research we need in transgender medicine,” Makary said. “What’s the regret rate after transition surgery? What’s the long term complication rate of hormones?”
“Those studies are not being done,” he continued. “Instead of funding those studies, they’ve chosen to take an activist position. And it’s very hard to do research in this field … because the activists have run a lot of people out of town, that reasonable doctors and objective scientists have been run out of town. Even recently, Mayo and Jefferson have fired people over simply suggesting that we need better research.”
On the issue of transgenderism and other LGBT aberrations, the Left repeatedly claims it wants conservatives to stay out of people’s private business, that what consenting adults choose to do is of no concern to anyone else.
If that’s the case, why do they continually insist on making it the public’s business by trying to get taxpayers to pay for their lifestyle choices?
The New American previously reported on the case of an Ohio group that uses taxpayer dollars to teach children how to become drag queens.
The group, Colors+ Youth Center, is based in Fairview, Ohio, and organizes monthly tutorials for grooming children into drag queens. For example, the youth center organized a joint event with Drag Queen Story Hour Cleveland, which, per the Colors+ Youth Center website, included a “drag performer reading an age-appropriate book with positive themes for LGBTQ+ youth highlighting inclusivity, creativity, and love.”
The group also hosted an event titled “Drag Me Back to School,” in which parents picked up school supplies for their kids while simultaneously letting their children engage in a Drag Story time.
Makary concluded by noting the vast shift AMA has taken, going from a methodical, science-based approach to transgender issues to a stance of merely affirming what transgender individuals want.
As he told Fox News:
Now there is a movement within the American Medical Association to say, “Let’s do this in biologic men or biologic men who identify as women.” If you remember, for decades, doctors have identified transgender people with chromosomal tests and clear-cut biologic features, but now there’s a movement where some doctors and the American Medical Association is saying people should be able to pick their gender change freely as a matter of personal choice.
That’s why you can walk into a Planned Parenthood as a child and walk out with a bottle of hormones. They believe it’s the job of the medical profession to simply affirm what you want to do.
Perhaps the decision-makers at AMA should recall their Hippocratic Oath and remember that their job is to advise patients in what is truly best for them, not coddle their mental illnesses.
