WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Pressure is mounting for the U.S. organ donation network to tackle one of the thorniest ethical questions it's ever faced -- whether a person with intellectual disabilities should be denied access to a transplant.

A bipartisan group of 30 legislators from the U.S. Congress petitioned the Department of Health and Human Services in October to "issue guidance on organ transplant discrimination with regards to persons with disabilities," according to a new opinion piece in the Jan. 26 New England Journal of Medicine.

The legislators' request follows several highly publicized cases in which people with intellectual disabilities have either fought to receive a transplant or have been outright denied a place on a waiting list, said co-author Dr. Scott Halpern. He's an associate professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

Around 120,000 people are waiting for a donated organ that's needed to save their lives, and every 10 minutes another person is added to the list, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says.

Every day, 22 people on the waiting list die without receiving a new organ, according to federal statistics.

Because of the constant shortage, the nation's system of organ banks -- the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) -- has to be stringent about who is given a place on the waiting list, Halpern said.

"It's very well established that transplant centers can and should deprioritize patients whose own conditions or social supports make them less likely to promote the viability of the organ by adhering to complicated medical regimens following transplantation," he said.

"That would constitute a waste of an organ that would not allow it to benefit the person to whom it was allocated and would deprive someone else who could have benefited," Halpern explained.

In recent years, transplant centers have struggled with whether an intellectual difficulty should prevent a person from receiving a donated organ, the authors noted.