Intellectual Disabilities

In fact, mentally disabled people are denied organ transplants so frequently that their rights are a rapidly emerging ethical issue in this field of medicine, where transplant teams have nearly complete autonomy in deciding who will receive scarce donor organs and who will be denied.

Aside from some limitations imposed by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers at the 815 transplant programs in the United States are free to consider neurocognitive disabilities such as autism in any way they see fit.

As a result, there is a great deal of variation between programs. Some teams place a high value on mental and psychological factors when deciding whether someone should be considered for the precious gift of a heart, liver, kidney, or lung. Others, however, do not. Some even admit to automatically dismissing people with certain disabilities. Some patients are turned down by one hospital but accepted by another.

Some efforts are being made to change this. In October, 30 members of Congress requested that the Department of Health and Human Services civil rights office issue guidance stating that discrimination in organ transplantation is a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. They also want the agency to tell transplant teams that a disabled person's support system should be considered when determining whether he or she will be able to adhere to a postoperative healthcare regimen, which is typically a factor in evaluating patients for a transplant.