Sally Satel, who frequently writes about her two kidney transplants, has a recent piece about organ donation as the ultimate medical drama. 
Finding a donor was hell. I started out like the mirror-image of Erica. I did not want a kidney from a relative or anyone I knew. I wanted to avoid what’s known in transplant circles as the “tyranny of the gift.” The term was coined in 1978 by the medical sociologists Renee C. Fox and Judith P. Swazey to denote the morphing of overwhelming gratitude at receiving an organ from a relative or friend into a sense of constricting obligation.
I went so far as to sign up on a website called MatchingDonors.com that helps link potential donors and recipients. You describe your pitiful state in the space provided and hope that some magnanimous stranger emails you about becoming your donor. Within a week of submitting my information, I hit it off, you might say, with a Canadian gentleman. You can read the long story here, but the short version is that he ghosted me.
Still seeking an anonymous exchange, I wanted to buy a kidney. But that was illegal. So, I gave in and told friends about my medical situation, hoping they would take the hint. And a number did, but within weeks of offering, they got cold feet. In two cases, husbands threatened divorce. . . .
Eventually, luck. A once-distant-but-now-dear friend, Virginia, heard from a mutual friend that I needed a kidney and saved me in 2006. When it wore out earlier than expected in 2016, another magnificent soul, a solid-though-not-best-but-now-beloved friend, Kim, became my second donor. Yes, I have been obscenely fortunate. . . .
In 20 to 30 years, human donation will almost surely be a memory from a curious medical past. Organ printing, wearable dialysis devices, and transgenic pigs will save all of us — kidney patients and reluctant friends and family members alike.
But for now, living donation will continue to elicit a range of sentiments from would-be donors. At one extreme, some people see giving an organ as the gratifying act of a lifetime. For those at the other end, it looms as a darkly conflicted prospect.
Until transplantation becomes fully technological, organ donation will remain a unique medical and human drama. (emphasis mine)
Read the full article here.
Sally also discussed these and other issues during her appearance on The Taboo Trades podcast, which I recently wrote about here.