Unfortunately, there are currently not enough organs donated by deceased donors to meet all of the needs of patients awaiting an organ transplant. Therefore, over the last few years, transplant surgeons and other members of transplant teams throughout the country have developed new techniques and procedures to save more patients' lives through living donor transplants. It is now possible for a living person to donate a kidney, a portion or their liver, a portion of a lung and in some rare instances, a portion of their pancreas.

There are many different ethical issues relating to living donors. Competing interests arise in this type of donation including the interests of the donor, the needs of the intended recipient and society for the organ transplant, the interests of the next of kin of both the donor and the recipient, and the interests of the transplant center caring for the awaiting recipient.

Living donations are handled by each individual transplant center where the recipient is waiting. However, the New York Organ Donor Network has launched a program that tries to match one potential donor-recipient pair that is biologically incompatible with another pair that faces a similar obstacle, thereby overcoming the incompatibility. Find out more about our Living Donor Kidney Exchange Program.

Whether donation is living or non-living, we know that it is done lovingly.