Since 2021, the American Kidney Fund (AKF) has graded each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia on how well their laws encourage living organ donation and reduce barriers for living donors. In our third annual Living Donor Protection Report Card, we are pleased to note progress that has been made in many states. In the past year, 10 laws that provide protection or financial support for living organ donors passed in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Delaware (twice!), Nebraska, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota and New York, making living donation easier. With these laws in place, each state’s grade on the Living Donor Protection Report Card either remained the same or was raised a letter since our first Report Card in 2021, ultimately raising the national average grade from a D to a C. 

Yet there remains a great deal of work to be done at the state and federal level. Until federal legislation is enacted to give baseline protections to living donors nationwide, states are still operating with a patchwork of living donor protection laws.

Donating a kidney is one of the most selfless actions a person can take, yet many states don’t have laws in place to protect donors from life, disability or long-term care insurance discrimination. Similarly, many states don’t have laws on the books that make it possible for donors to take adequate time off work to recover from the surgery. Barriers like these discourage living organ donation, and AKF’s public policy team is working with our patient Ambassadors nationwide to remove these barriers by changing the laws.  

Together, we can give living organ donors the protections they need, no matter where they live.

Learn how we graded the states.