In a new survey from Canada, 45 percent of people said that money is an acceptable incentive for organ donations from living donors, while 70 percent of survey respondents said that cash is an acceptable enticement for people to donate their organs after death.

"We do need to consider a system where we compensate people for their giving," said study researcher Dr. Braden Manns, professor of nephrology at the University of Calgary in Canada.

The idea of paying organ donors is not new. "We have more patients on dialysis, but we don't have more donors; so we're looking at other ways to motivate people to donate," Manns said.