They say their children are being denied transplants because of their disabilities. A new federal law may help change that.

A patient with disabilities can be denied life-saving organ transplants because of those disabilities, and parents often fear the worst. Families have won protections in many states — including 14 in the last year. 

But more than three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act — which prohibits discrimination based on a person's disability — became federal law, advocates say inequities persist in health care.

According to a 2019 report from the National Council for Disability, "the lives of persons with disabilities continue to be devalued in medical decision-making," and a widely cited 2008 study involving pediatric transplants found 85% percent of organ transplant centers around the country considered a child's neurodevelopmental delay when deciding to add them to the list.