Law Commons^™

The Kidney Donor Scholarship Act: How College Scholarships Can Provide Financial Incentives For Kidney Donation While Preserving Altruistic Meaning, Jake Linford

Jake Linford

In the United States, lives are lost on a daily basis due to a significant shortfall in the availability of kidneys for transplantation. The current debate over possible solutions has primarily taken place at two theoretical poles—open markets and pure altruism. This article provides a timely and original response, bridging the gulf between the poles by proposing an educational scholarship to encourage kidney donation, and presenting data which indicates that the scholarship incentive may well increase the availability of transplantable kidneys in a way that preserves altruistic donation and mitigates potentially coercive market pressures. In making this case, this article …