An Anatomical Gift

An anatomical gift may include organs, tissue, eyes, bones, arteries, blood, and other portions of the human body. Most state laws allow you to make gifts of any or all of these. Some people include their wishes to donate organs in their will, but because with body part donation time is usually of the essence, an organ donation card is the most practical method of having your wishes carried out.

An Organ Donor Card

Many people carry an organ donor card in their wallet or have a sticker on their driver’s license that indicates their desire to donate organs when they pass away. This makes it clear what an individual’s wishes are with regard to organ donation. If you do not, your family members may be called upon to make the decision for you at the same time they are dealing with your death or impending death, health care providers, health insurance, funeral arrangements, etc. In times of grief, your relatives may not be comfortable with such a decision and may be unwilling to agree to it, even if you would have wanted it.

Family Authorization

If one’s family members must make the choice, each of the following persons, in order of priority, are authorized under the law to decide whether to make an anatomical gift of all or part of the body of a decedent: an agent expressly authorized in writing by the deceased individual to make such a gift; the spouse; a son or daughter 18 years of age or older; either parent; a brother or sister 18 years of age or older; an adult grandchild; certain other relatives listed in the law; a guardian at the time of death; or any other person having the authority to dispose of the decedent’s body.

The Law and Organ Donation

If someone chooses to be an organ donor, and there is a card or sticker on their license as evidence of that choice, then what the law says is that they are going to be an organ donor and families cannot override that decision. This is a common occurrence. The idea behind this is to facilitate organ donation as much as possible.

The laws on this topic are complex, but one thing to keep in mind when considering organ donation is that it is not just about what will happen to your body after you die. There are also implications for what the medical providers do to you before you die. The most controversial part of organ donation law deals with unconscious patients who have signed donor cards but also "living wills" or other documents that state that they do not want a ventilator or other medical care to keep them alive, which is sometimes necessary to maintain organ viability until a transplant can take place. Family members or others are to be consulted in such situations to try to determine what the donor would have wanted. Some remain uneasy that the law still puts organ donation on an equal footing with declared end-of-life wishes. For some people, avoiding a machine may be more important than donating their organs. Anything that blurs that line between patient-comfort-care-first, organ-donation-later, might make it a more difficult decision for many of us. For this reason, it’s wise to get the facts, understand the law, and then make your decision.