Organ Donation Clarification & Anti Trafficking Act

Modern transplantation techniques have made it possible to save many people whose organs have failed. However, organ donations are few and far between. Many transplant advocates believe that allowing people to be compensated for donation of organs such as kidneys would highly increase the number of donated organs. However, others worry that this would favor rich recipients and result in all donated organs coming from economically disadvantaged individuals. The Organ Donation Clarification & Anti Trafficking Acts aim to resolve this issue.

2007

• In 2007, Senator Carl Levin introduced the Living Kidney Organ Donation and Clarification Act of 2007 to Congress. This bill aimed to ease paired donations, in which a friend or family member of one patient donates an organ to another patient in return for an organ for their loved one. The amendment sought to have such arrangements declared non-commercial and therefore not subject to fines or prosecution. Although this bill passed in the Senate it never made it to a vote in the House of Representatives.

2008

• The Organ Donation & Anti Trafficking Act of 2008 was introduced to Congress in September of 2008 by Senator Arlen Specter. While still upholding historic bans on commercial private sales of organs, it allows for government compensation of organ donors. While it does not set up such a program, it gives states permission to do so. The bill never became law.

Support and Opposition

• The bill received support from organizations such as the American Medical Association and the American Association of Kidney Patients. These organizations stressed how the list of patients seeking kidney donations grows longer each year and many patients die while waiting for a donation. Opponents of the bill claimed that the poor would still be financially coerced into being donors. They claimed it was ethically wrong to provide incentives to donate for people who would otherwise not want to donate.