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Life-and-death dilemmas. New medical technologies. Controversial treatments. In playing god? we hear from the patients whose lives were transformed—and sometimes saved—by medical innovations and the bioethicists who help guide complex decisions.
Ventilators can keep critically ill people alive, but when is it acceptable to turn the machines off? Organ transplants save lives, but when demand outpaces supply, how do we decide who gets them? Novel reproductive technologies can help people have babies in ways that are far beyond what nature allows. So, when should these “Brave New World” technologies be introduced, and who should control them?
playing god? is a production of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, with generous support from The Greenwall Foundation. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
The Berman Institute has created a guide for each episode where you can learn more about the guests, the history, and the ethics issues at: bioethics.jhu.edu/playing-god
00:00:03
Speaker 1: I was yearning for something so deep that I felt like it was impossible to get to. I just felt like I was in kind of like a hole that I couldn't get out of because I was ready to start a family and I wanted to be able to have our own babies.
00:00:20
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, Jen Dingle went through a period of intense depression. She was ready to start a family with her husband, and she wanted the experience of being pregnant, but she was grieving the fact that that could never happen.
00:00:34
Speaker 1: Being a mom and having my own kids has always been a dream, but I knew that it wasn't it wouldn't be possible for me.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: Jen has a rare congenital disorder called Maya Rokitanski Cousta Houser syndrome m r K eight for short. She was born with ovaries but no cervix or uterus. She first became aware of her diagnosis when she was fourteen, but Jen says at the time she had trouble wrapping her head around what it all meant.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: It was sad, but at the same time, being fourteen, you're not really thinking about carrying.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: Your own child.
00:01:09
Speaker 1: And also, I feel like at that age, you don't really fully understand how your body works all the way. And so for me, whenever I got that news, I actually thought to myself, well, maybe my uterus just hasn't grown in, and maybe my uterus will just miraculously grow in by itself. And so at that age, I think I didn't really realize what it really truly meant for me.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: When Jen got older, I married her husband. They started looking into their options for how to have a biological child. A fertility doctor told them that their only option was to create embryos using in vitro fertilization and then find a gestational carrier to give birth to the baby, But the couple wasn't sure they could afford it. Gestational carriers can be prohibitively expensive. Anyway, it still wasn't what Jen really wanted. Then one day, the fertility doctor made an offhand comment that changed the course of Jen's life.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: She said, I remember hearing something about a uterus transplant happening somewhere overseas, And she said, but I would never count on that happening here in the States, because it's way, way too risky.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: But to Jen, a uterus transplant sounded like the perfect solution to her problem, despite whatever risks her doctor may have been referring to. When she got home from the appointment, Jen immediately began searching uterus transplants online. She found the transplant center that the doctor had mentioned. It was in the UK, but when she reached out to the center, she found out that they weren't ready to offer them to patients. Yet she continued to feel caught in a dark depression. She opened up to her mom when she was back home in Dallas, Texas for a visit.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: And I remember sitting down talking with my mom and just to her, you know, I've just been sad lately. I want to be able to start a family, but surrogacy is just way too expensive and I don't know if it's even going to be possible. And that's when she's like, you're going to become a mom. I know, I feel it in my heart. You will become a mom. And that's nice for her to tell me, but it's just hard to believe those things when you've been told that it's like impossible.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Jen didn't bring up utrius transplants with her mom that day. It seemed like too much of a distant possibility. But then a week after that conversation, she got a call from her mom.
00:03:37
Speaker 1: She's like, you are never going to believe what I've seen on the news. I'm like what, And she said, Baylor in Dallas is going to be doing a uterus transplant trial for ten women like you who were either born without a uterus or who lost their uterus due to cancer or something like that. I'm like, I gotta go, I gotta go. I didn't even let her finish telling me what all it was about.
00:04:01
Speaker 2: I'm Lauren Aurora Hutchinson. I'm the director of the Idea's Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. On today's episode Uterus transplants, The first one that resulted in a healthy baby being born was performed in Sweden in twenty thirteen. Since then, over one hundred uterous transplants have taken place, and over a third of those were performed in the US. Uterus transplants can offer a life changing opportunity to individuals with certain types of infertility, but they do come with risk, and they will cost a lot of money, and there are other ways to build a family. What are the ethics of performing an organ transplant in order to have a baby. Is it okay to transplant organs that aren't life saving? From pushing industries and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, This is playing god. Jen couldn't believe her luck. Of all the hospitals in the world that could have been starting up a uterus transplant program, it was Baylor University Medical Center, practically in her old backyard. Jen rushed to apply the application, laid out the risk factors and requirements. After the transplant, recipients would have to go on immunosuppressants and be extremely careful not to spend time around someone who was sick, and the transplant center emphasized that the procedure was not a guarantee of a pregnancy. The first three times Baylor had attempted the transplant so far it hadn't worked. All three uterresses had to be removed because of an insufficient blood flough. That made Jen a bit nervous, but she was undeterred.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: I felt like this was my chance, Like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
00:06:04
Speaker 2: After a few months of waiting, Jen's application was approved. After years of dreaming, about carrying her own child. She felt like she might actually have a shot. Doctors explained that the first step was to begin the search for a living donor. The doctors at Baylor told Jen they had to put out a call for anonymous, altruistic donors, people who were willing to donate their uterus to a complete stranger. Jen also asked her family members and friends, but for various reasons, none of them were in a position to donate. While she was waiting for the clinic to identify a compatible donor, Jen and her husband flew back to Texas to do a round of IVF. They got five embryos. A month later, the clinic told Jen they'd found a donor and she was a match. For privacy reasons, the hospital couldn't share much about the woman, just that she was from the area and had four kids herself, but the hospital did allow the two women to exchange cards through their nurses.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: I felt like I had so much to tell her, and a pen and a card just wasn't enough. It was just very selfless for someone a stranger to do something like that for someone that they don't know, And I just couldn't think her enough, and her family for letting her go under the knife or somebody. They have no blue who they're doing it for.
00:07:33
Speaker 2: The transplant took place just a few weeks later.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: After they woke me up from the surgery. I remember them rolling me to ICU, and that was whenever I first opened my eyes, and I just remember laying there and watching the lights above me as we're walking down the hallway, and the first thing I said.
00:07:53
Speaker 3: Was do I have a uterus?
00:07:55
Speaker 1: And the nurse who was pushing me look down and they smiled and they're like, you have a uter And I just remember feeling so happy and putting my hands on my stomach.
00:08:05
Speaker 2: The surgery seemed to have gone well, but one month later, Jen noticed that she was having some spotting. She called her doctor, who asked her to describe the bleeding.
00:08:16
Speaker 1: And she's like, you know, I think you're starting your very first period, and I was like, really.
00:08:22
Speaker 2: At age twenty seven, Jen had gotten her period for the first time. The surgery had worked. Six months after the transplant, Jen went to the fertility clinic to have one of her frozen embryos transferred into a new uterus.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: After having the embryo transfer, I just I didn't want to move. I kind of just wanted to stay in one spot until we got the word to know if it had worked.
00:08:48
Speaker 3: I just I was so cautious.
00:08:51
Speaker 2: Nine days later, she went in for testing to see if the embryo had implanted.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: It had.
00:08:57
Speaker 1: Jen was pregnant, and I just, I can't believe like that. That's something that I had always dreamed about, and it happened. It worked.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: Her pregnancy went smoothly, and the experience of carrying a child was everything Jen had hoped it would be.
00:09:16
Speaker 1: I had an amazing experience being pregnant. I loved being able to look at my belly grow and feel the baby move and things like that.
00:09:27
Speaker 2: In February twenty eighteen, more than three years after she had first started learning about uterus transplants, Jen gave birth to a healthy daughter, Jea, in a planned C section. But Jen's story doesn't end there. Two years after she had her daughter, Jia, in February twenty twenty, Jen gave birth to a second baby, girl, Jade, That made Jen the first woman in the US to have two children with the transplanted uterus. The same day, Jade was born at the recommendation of her medical team, gens uterus was surgically removed, but by then it had changed her life forever. Despite the obvious upsides of uterus transplants, the procedure has still raised a number of tricky ethical issues. Doctor Ruth Ferrel is an obgyn and bioethicist who has been at the forefront of these issues. She's Vice Chair of Research for the Obgyn and Women's Health Institute. As a Cleveland clinic where the first ever us uterus transplant happened in twenty sixteen, Ruth led the ethics discussions leading up to that successful transplant. She helped to explain why people might choose a uterus transplant that is invasive and expensive over other options like adopting or using a gestational carrier.
00:10:51
Speaker 4: There are other approaches to have families, and they are very important and valid ways to build families. Yet for some individuals, either because of local legal regulations or cultural or religious policies or practices, that gestational surrogacy or adoption are not permitted or accessible, So uterine transplant is another option.
00:11:14
Speaker 2: The prestigious starts with the donated uters becoming available, and that can happen in two ways.
00:11:21
Speaker 4: One is a living donor model, where individual will make the choice to have the uters removed and then give it to another individual who's considering uterine transplant. The other approach is a deceased donor model.
00:11:34
Speaker 2: There are several ethical issues to consider in the donation process, regardless of whether it is a living or deceased donor.
00:11:41
Speaker 4: With respect to living donors, we think about what maybe the factors to deciding to donate their uterus, how do we ensure those decisions are made voluntarily and using informed consent. Or an individual who has deceased and as donate their organs, we also have to think about what they would have wanted and seeking permission and authorization from their families if the uterus is used in this way.
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Unlike deceased donors, living donors take some degree of risk to their health. Like any invasive surgery, there's the potential for donors to get an infection or lose a lot of blood, and that also has to be taken into consideration in an ethical analysis of uterist transplants.
00:12:21
Speaker 4: When you donate your uterus as a living donor, it's more than just a standard hysterectomy. The reason why is when you remove the uterus for a transplant reason, you're trying to also get a lot of the tissue next to it getting some of the blood vessels because that's important for having a good connection in the recipient. When you get more tissue, there can be some injury to the organs in the pelvis, and that can either lead to a short term or long term complication.
00:12:46
Speaker 2: Sometimes the donors are family members of the recipient, a sibling or even a mother That can also raise questions.
00:12:54
Speaker 4: There may be factors such as pressure, coersion, someone's sense of duty or obligation help a family member or a relative, So we need to think about those and do as much as we can ahead of time to ensure that all parties are informed of what the procedure entails and to reduce any potential influence of coercion or bias in that and the centers that are undergoing these studies or taking on these procedures do a very meticulous job of informed consent for all members of the group.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: There's a growing demand for this procedure, which allows someone to carry their own child who would otherwise not be able to. Right now, uterus transplants are mainly available through research programs one day when they do become available more widely, getting one maybe out of reach for most of those who need or want one. Many people already face limited access to fertility treatments because few are covered by insurance, which raises questions of who exactly will be able to afford this surgery.
00:14:01
Speaker 4: Part of the core of this is identifying that infertility is a condition, is a disease for which there should be coverage. Also, how to all play it all depend upon the country and what kind of insurance they have, whether it's a or nationalized healthcare system or system like here in the US, And so there's still many unknowns about how much this will cost and how will be paid for. So that's something which is still being studied, but it's a core part of doing research and you doing transplant understanding how we can ensure that equity issues are not perpetuated.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Coming up, I'll speak with the person who knows more about uterus transplants than perhaps anyone in the world. She headed up the team that gave Jen her transplant, and she was right there in the room when Jen had her children. She and her colleagues are already at work on the next surgical breakthrough in uterrous transplants.
00:14:56
Speaker 3: There is no clear, you know, medical reason why transgender females couldn't undergo a uterus transplant.
00:15:05
Speaker 2: That's after the break Lisa Johannson is a medical director a uteris transplant at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. She's been working on utros transplants for fifteen years. It all started for Lisa when she was a resident in gynecology and obstetrics in Sweden. One of her professors suggested she join his lab and make uterus transplants the focus of her PhD.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: First, I thought he was absolutely insane. I had never heard about it and it was completely new to me the concept. But as I kind of learned more about it, I decided that this was something exciting and we started them performing the rodent surgeries and then pig models, sheep models, and then as the last kind of step before we could do humans, did baboon studies as well. So when I presented my thesis this was back in twenty twelve, a couple of months after that we started with the first human trial of uterus transplant in the world.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Wow, very pioneering. So could you tell me what your favorite part of specializing in this area is now.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: My favorite part is that we now actually can sit down with patients that are they lost their uterus, are they're born without uters, and we can actually tell them that there is options for you. You can go through surrogacy, you can go through adoption, but there's also an option to actually treat the diagnosis you have and you can experience gestation and childbirth. And I never thought that we were going to be able to say that to our patients.
00:16:48
Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible to have seen that right from the process of operating on animals and then go through to be able to tell someone that they could have a baby in that way. That's amazing. So where were you then when Jen gave birth?
00:17:02
Speaker 3: I was right there delivering the baby, So I think all of our team members were in that delivery room, and you know, just being there for her, for her family, it's worth it.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: Right there, that must have been a powerful moment. So, going back to when you got started with uterus transplants, what types of ethical questions were you and other researchers considering back then?
00:17:24
Speaker 3: The ethics around this has changed a lot. So in the beginning when we did this in animals, the ethics was very much focused on is this doable, this procedure, is it worth it? Why are we doing it? Because there are other options we will always get compared with surrogacy and adoption. But then when we started having offspring from the animal research and when we started having babies from the human trials, the ethics kind of changed. We more came into ethics around who should we do this for, how should we do this procedure to minimize the risk for the recipients. Which donors should we use? Is it's okay to use living donors for this transplant that is not life necessary and it's only a quality of life enhancing. So the ethical field has been very interesting to follow, but it's evolving as we of all the surgical field.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one thing that surprised me about Gen's story was that after she had her second baby, her uterus was removed. Why is this transplant only kept temporarily rather than leaving it in place.
00:18:31
Speaker 3: At the moment the recipient of uterus will have to take umnisuppressive medications that goes for all solid organs, and as of now, these medications if you take them for many many years, they might have adverse effects on your kidneys and on other organ systems in the body, So we try to minimize the time that these healthy individuals need to be on a minu suppressive treatment. So that's why we usually say about five six years is enough. During that time, we give them possibility of having one to maybe three children, and then we actually take the utress out.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: Huh. That's interesting because if the uterus can be taken back after it's fulfilled its purpose, I could see how a surgeon might feel more ethically comfortable performing that transplant, which is not about saving a life, if they know that the side effects are more short term because the uterus can be removed again. But then how do physicians weigh their idea of when a surgery is worth it versus when a patient thinks it's worth it.
00:19:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think you know, as a surgeon, one of our main tasks is to not inflict harm, not injure the patients we're dealing with, So it's not up to me to decide, you know, how much does a uterus in a person's life, how much quality of life does that enhance? You know, having a uterress. I can never say that because that's only up to the person who wants sat utris and to evaluate how much it means to them. But for me, I can never make myself inflict harm on anyone, So I know that immune suppression will not be in that person's best interest, and I have to lean towards what can I do to develop better drugs, what can I do to think outside of the box to help these patients. But it's a very very tricky feel because I can understand why that would be important, but I have responsibility not to inflict harm on patients as well.
00:20:40
Speaker 2: And could you speak a bit more about how candidates are evaluated or prioritized, so who's first on the list for a transplant and how do you assess needs and eligibility.
00:20:51
Speaker 3: So there's a tremendous need for this procedure, so we've been quite surprised when we look at the numbers. So we actually did a little study with Baylor and with Cleveland Clinic and with University of Pennsylvania, which had been the three centers in the US that was mostly active in utross transplant in the beginning, and during these five years or six years that we have been open for US transplant we have had more than five thousand women applying for having a utress transplant, and we have only transplanted thirty nine, so you can imagine how many we have had to say no to. From the beginning, it's been first come, first basis. They contact us, we have a basic kind of health questionnaire first to make sure that they are healthy, to make sure that they are right age, and then we have them in for evaluation. And then after we have cleared these individuals for transplant, we start looking for an eligible donor for them, and most cases in the US so far has actually been living donors.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: And what would happen if a patient had their children and then they said to you, I feel like this uterus is part of my body now and I don't want to have it removed.
00:22:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, So so far, these are highly selected patients that have been very compliant with the medical team. And we always say to the patients that we consider them to be part of the team. So we usually have conversations with them. If they have a different, you know, opinion than we do, we try to come to a common ground. But of course it's going to happen at some point that the patient is definitely don't want to give up their uters and the reason for that is that univerus oppression is not where we want it to be at the moment. It can potentially damage your life and your organs if you have it for too long. And we can't, of course force them to give up their uterus, but we can try to explain to them why we think like we do. And usually people come to terms with that because if they have given births, they also realize that they need to be there for that child for the child's lifetime, right, so they do want to be in good health, and if something is is damaging their health liking inn suppression potentially can do, they are quite willing to get rid of that.
00:23:06
Speaker 2: And if someone had their uterus removed because of a health condition like cancer or fibroids, but they felt that they needed to have a uterus in order to kind of feel whole, would they be eligible for a uterus transplant.
00:23:19
Speaker 3: For now, it's only for reproductive purposes, So at the moment, just to feel whole is it's not just but to feel whole, it is not a good reason to get a uterus transplant today.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: And my understanding is that today only cis gender women have received uterus transplants. Is that correct?
00:23:40
Speaker 3: That is correct as of today?
00:23:42
Speaker 2: And how close would you say that you are to being able to perform muterus transplants on transgender patients and intersex patients.
00:23:51
Speaker 3: I know for a fact that there are several teams, both in the US and in Europe that I was looking into that possibility, and I think think that we are very close to at least doing intersex patients and AIS patients, which is patients with androgen insensitivity syndrome that biologically have an xy chromosomes. I think we're very close to doing those, and then transgender females will follow closely behind.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: And just to make sure I understand, because this would be a big deal. That's also for the purpose of procreation.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, so in theory it would. We don't know yet. And the reason I say theory is that it's not been done yet, but I believe it. Yes, it could be done.
00:24:36
Speaker 2: That's incredible. So are there any ethical considerations that working with a new group like this might bring up?
00:24:44
Speaker 1: Now?
00:24:44
Speaker 3: I think when you look at the transgender population, you know there are lots of different issues when it comes to transplantation. That we may or may not have overcome yet. So the things you usually talk about just you know, there's anatomical differences or hormonal factors that might be different, there's fertility concerns, but when it comes to medical parts, there's no clear, you know, medical reason why transgender females couldn't undergo you just transplant. But it's up to the traditions and the legal actions we have of the society to decide whether we should do it just because some people say, you know, just because we can, maybe we shouldn't. If you ask me personally, I think that everyone has the right to reproductive rights and healthcare that includes also transgenders. So that's kind of my personal standpoint.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: And have you spoken to potential patients who are interested in looking at this kind of surgery for this feeling and feeling whole as opposed to procreation.
00:25:48
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, we get those requests, I would say at least weekly and so far. Unfortunately, you know, we have to advise them that this is not a good option for them if that's their purpose, But we do get that.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: Could you just talk a little bit more about the future of uterus transplants and which direction you see things going.
00:26:09
Speaker 3: So I think uterus transplant it's very exciting. I've been thinking that from the beginning. But I think we're now at a road cross where, you know, we know that we can do it, We know that we can do it safe. We know that there's a huge demand from patients that wants to go through a uterress transplant, and we know there's an enormous supply out there with donors that wants to give their uters away. So the only thing that's now holding us back is actually the funding, the economics of it, and there we need help from decision makers, for policymakers to understand that infertility is this massive problem that society would be helped. You know, if we support infertility, the whole society benefits from that.
00:26:58
Speaker 2: That's really interesting, And so would you say, and with uterus transplants, is not actually a shortage of people willing to donate their uterus, it's that it's the economics of the cost of the surgery.
00:27:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But there's so many people out there that wants to donate. And that's one of the things that when I moved from Sweden over here, I was so surprised because in Sweden we had these directed donors, which means that they know their recipient. So the recipient had to come with their donors. So it was usually the mother of the recipient or a close relative that wanted to donate. But here when we opened in Dallas, all of a sudden, we had all these donors from all over the country calling in one saying, you know, I want to give my uterus away. The pregnancy was such an important part of my life, and I want to give that experience to someone else. So we have had donors from forty one different states calling us and wanting to donate. And they do that on their own cost. You know, they travel. We can't give them any reimbursement for travel or expenses like that. So they come, they pay for their own you know, stay and plane tickets and everything. And they do this, They give up their uterus to someone they don't know and they may never meet, just to give them the experience.
00:28:16
Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible and that that's really interesting. And so it shows a kind of difference with something like kidneys, where there is a long list and it seems like the determining factor is the shortage of you know, donors. But then yeah, that's really interesting that they're there and ready. It's just the money that's really bad.
00:28:36
Speaker 3: I know, it's frustrating.
00:28:39
Speaker 2: What do you think would make that change?
00:28:41
Speaker 3: I think, you know, reproduction in general and together with uterus transportation is a field that we don't have any good support for and why that is maybe it is you know, I would like more women in the decision making roles. I would like younger women and younger people up there to take part in the decision making because I think infertility is a diagnosis that it's considered a disease, but it's a very it's almost like a stigma more more than something that we can cure. So there's a lot of studies out there where you compare different diseases that people get, and infertility is right up there with cancer diagnosis in terms of severity for the individual and the psychological issues that comes with it. So I think we should really look at infertility for what it is. It's a disease that we can cure and it needs support.
00:29:47
Speaker 2: When I heard Lisa talk about the lack of support for infertility, I couldn't help but think of gen Dingle and the dark hole she felt she couldn't escape. From before her uterus transplant. She hopes that her experience can help other people with uterine factor infertility issues.
00:30:04
Speaker 1: Now they can look at my story and they can say, I have an option. Now you know, I don't have to go in and out of these dark holes because now I know that there's options.
00:30:19
Speaker 2: But just how accessible of an option it will be once uterus transplants become more widely available remains to be seen.
00:30:26
Speaker 3: It's just so expensive.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: It's so expensive to become a mom if you have to go through loops like that.
00:30:33
Speaker 2: Remember, for Jen, having a gestational carrier had been out of reach due to its extremely high cost. Her wish come true was only financially possible because her uterus transplant was part of a research program and her costs were covered. As uterus transplants become offering clinics, the cost might be just as out of reach for people like Jen as using a gestational carrier, and, like a lot lot of other types of fertility treatment, many insurance programs might not cover getting one. Last year, Jen had another.
00:31:10
Speaker 3: Wish come true.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: Her medical team set up a meeting at the hospital between her and her uterus donor. The two women first saw each other from across the hospital terrace.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: We kind of just ran up to each other and gave each other a hug, and we cried, and we were nervous because there was lots of people around just watching us. But we were able to kind of just have our own moment and just love on each other a little bit and just tell each other how thankful we were for each other.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: It turns out this whole time, they'd lived in the same city, just ten minutes apart from each other. These days, Jen is in good health. She doesn't have any medical procedures planned at this time, but if there was a way to do it without putting too much strain on her body, she says she'd gladly get another uterus transplant. She'd love to have more kids.
00:32:06
Speaker 1: If I could have another transplant, I would, And I'd joke with my team about that all the time. If you guys want to do something new that's never been done, a transplant after a transplant, here I am.
00:32:23
Speaker 2: Next time on playing God. Lorie strong In's son Henry, was diagnosed at birth with a rare and often fatal genetic disease. She was told that Henry's best chance of surviving past Kindergarten was a transplant of umbilical core blood from a sibling with a specific genetic profile.
00:32:43
Speaker 5: We got a call from a doctor who said, what would you do if I told you you could knowingly get pregnant with a baby who's healthy and a perfect genetic match to Henry? And I said, yes.
00:33:03
Speaker 2: But is it ethical to create a life in order to save another? That's next time I'm playing God. Thank you to all the guests who appeared in this episode, Jen Dingle, Lisa Johannson and Ruth Ferrell. Playing God is a co production of Pushkin Industries and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Emily Bourne is our lead producer. This episode was also produced by Sophie Crane and Lucy Sullivan. Our editors are Karen Chakerjee and Kate Parkinson Morgan. The music and mixing by Echo Mountain Engineering support from Sarah Bruguerre and Amanda Kaiwang. Show art by Sean Carney, fact checking by David jar and Arthur Gompertz. Our executive producer is Justine Lang at the Johns Hopkins Berman in st You to Bioethics. Our executive producers are Jeffrey Kahan and Anna Mastriani, working with a mediahood. Funding provided by the green Wall Foundation. Special thanks to Anne Egold. I'm Laurena Rora Hutchinson. Come back next week for more Playing God. Generous support for Playing God is provided by the Greenwall Foundation. Making bioethics integral to healthcare policy and research. Learn more at greenwall dot org