from a utility standpoint, this obv. won't do anything to alleviate the donor burden for reasons Anon makes clear. But I think there are important matters of principle at stake here.

Currently, the ethical arguments against allowing organ donation from inmates (in exchange for time off or not) rest on identifying the prison bound population as vulnerable to coercion (the idea being that prisoners cannot give meaningful informed consent to such procedures).

Frankly, this argument has never made sense to me. Unless every positive incentive is coercive, how is allowing inmates to enter into mutually beneficial behavior coercive? If sentences were raised on criminals who did not donate kidneys that would be one thing, but this isn't that.

If I beat the snot out of Kevin and steal his car, I go to jail for X years. If I behave in jail, I may leave in X-n years. Why isn't donating a kidney the same? I don't have to be a model inmate if I don't want to ... I can just serve X years and not get time off. I can not give up a kidney in exactly the same way.

If anything, not allowing prison donations on principle is a further restriction on liberty, a further punishment for a crime outside the penalty prescribed by law.

Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong... but I thought that the "default" donor status for Europeans was "donor." While in America it's presumed that you don't want to be a donor (unless otherwise stated or appealed). So in cases of accidental death, Europeans donate their organs automatically (unless they have documented that they decline to be donors). Call me crazy, but isn't this a better system?