There are an estimated 34,000 people at any one time waiting for a transplant organ. Although recent polls show that 60 percent of Americans are willing to donate their organs and 75 percent are willing to donate the organs of a family member, there is still a serious gap between the need for organs and the supply of donors. Currently organs are obtained from only about 15 percent of all potential donors, a number which must be increased to meet the demand.

The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) of 1968 provided for the first time that an individual could donate his or her organs at death to another for medical purposes. It was adopted in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and was a major step toward solving the organ donation problem. But new medical technologies have now made many transplant operations commonplace, and a shortage of donor organs remains.

Can the law respond further to the need for donor organs? In 1987 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws revised the original UAGA to encourage wider participation in organ donation. Why should every state replace the original UAGA with the 1987 UAGA?

The new UAGA simplifies the manner of making an anatomical gift. The "document of gift" is effective upon the signature of the donor, and it requires no witnesses, unlike the 1968 Act.

The act encourages volunteer donations by making "routine inquiry" the law. This means that hospital and medical personnel are required to ask every patient upon admittance whether he or she has considered making a "document of gift." (Doctors are encouraged to extend this inquiry to patients who are admitted for outpatient and emergency services, or minor surgery.) It is estimated that without such a provision in the law, only 25 percent of patients are asked whether they would become donors or not.

Hospital administrators are also required to discuss the options of donating organs with the decedent's next of kin, and to request the donation of organs of a decedent when there is no known "document of gift." This "required request" simply means that more patients and their families will be reached and asked about making an anatomical gift, in the hope this will increase the number of organ donations.

Beyond volunteer donation and "required request," the act authorizes the taking of organs by coroners and medical examiners under certain guidelines. Medical examiners (or other appropriate state officials) are empowered to remove organs when a specific medical request for certain organs has been made. If the coroner or medical examiner has a decedent in custody, and after a reasonable effort to locate any donor or family objection finds none, the organs can be removed.

Combined together, these things will effectively make transplant organs more readily available than they were in the past. The need for transplant organs has never been greater, so too, the need for a comprehensive uniform law. The importance of adopting the revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act should be self-evident.