National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws

211 E. Ontario St., Suite 1300, Chicago, IL 60611
tel 312-915-0195, fax 312-915-0187

For Immediate Release

The Most Precious Gift:
Enactment of Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act Can Help Ease Organ Shortage

January 2000 - While the number of organ donors nationwide increased by 5.6 percent last year, 64,423 people were still waiting for hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases and kidneys at the end of 1998, up more than 7,700 from the previous year, according to the national registry maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

Efforts to overcome the donor shortage date back 30 years to the promulgation by the Uniform Law Commissioners of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which was subsequently adopted by all 50 states and the District of Columbia. That original act stipulated, for the first time, that an individual, upon death, could donate his or her organs for medical purposes by signing a simple document before witnesses. That was a major first step.

Since that time, however, new medical technologies have dramatically increased the number of transplants and the demand for organs, resulting in a serious shortage. The revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), promulgated in 1987, was drafted to help narrow the growing gap between supply and demand. It has been adopted in 22 states.

UAGA simplifies the "document of gift" permitting organ donations and drops the requirement for witnesses to the document. In the absence of such a document, the act expands the list of people who can act on behalf of a decedent and permit a donation.

Equally important, the act expands awareness of the need for organ donations. It requires hospitals to request every incoming patient to consider making a "document of gift." Each patient has to be asked if he or she has consented to donating organs. If yes, the "document of gift" is made a part of the medical record. If not, with consent of the attending physician, the option must be discussed with the patient. If there is no record of objection to an anatomical gift, after death the hospital must initiate discussion of a gift with anyone entitled to make such a gift. This "required request" idea was also incorporated into federal law in 1987, and imposes similar requirements upon hospitals paid under Medicaid and Medicare.

The revised act also mandates coordination among hospitals and procurement organizations, so that donors can be matched with those who need organs. It expressly prohibits the sale of organs, and enables individuals specifically to forbid the taking of their own organs, if they so desire.

While the public must be further educated to increase awareness of the organ shortage, and individuals wishing to donate their organs must be encouraged to tell their family of their wishes, the importance of enacting the revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act should be self-evident. Every donor has the potential of giving renewed life to four other people.

The ULC, officially known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, is now in its 109th year. The organization comprises more than 300 lawyers, judges, and law professors, appointed by the states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, to draft proposals for uniform and model laws and work toward their enactment in their legislatures. Since its inception in 1892, the group has promulgated more than 200 acts, among them such bulwarks of state statutory law as the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Probate Code, and the Uniform Partnership Act.

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