Refusal to make anatomical gift — Effect of refusal · Arkansas
Arkansas: how to refuse organ donation
If you came here to get off the registry
Is removing the donor designation enough in Arkansas?
Taking your name off the organ donor registry is a revocation. So is removing the designation from your driver’s license. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1208, Arkansas law treats a revocation and a refusal as two different things, and only the refusal settles it.
A revocation withdraws the gift you made. It does not stop anyone else from making the gift for you. Only a refusal does that, and Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1207 is the section that says so. It has to be signed.
Both provisions are quoted in full below, from Arkansas’s own code.
What Arkansas asks
What you need to make a refusal in Arkansas
- Act
- 2006 revision
- Enforcement
- An unrevoked refusal bars all other persons from making the gift.
- Signing it yourself
- No witnesses required by the statute.
- If someone signs at your direction
- Two adults. At least one of the two must be a disinterested witness; the other may be anyone, including a family member.
- Notary
- Not required.
- Arkansas law
- Ark. Code Ann. §§ 20-17-1207, 20-17-1208
- Statute read
- 2026-09-02
Refusal to make anatomical gift — Effect of refusal · Preclusive effect of anatomical gift, amendment, or revocation
The statute itself
Quoted from Arkansas’s enacted code, in full and unedited.
How a refusal is made (a)
An individual may refuse to make an anatomical gift of the individual's body or part by: (1) a record signed by: (A) the individual; or (B) subject to subsection (b), another individual acting at the direction of the individual if the individual is physically unable to sign; (2) the individual's will, whether or not the will is admitted to probate or invalidated after the individual's death; or (3) any form of communication made by the individual during the individual's terminal illness or injury addressed to at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness.
Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1207
How it must be witnessed (b)
A record signed pursuant to subsection (a)(1)(B) must: (1) be witnessed by at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness, who have signed at the request of the individual; and (2) state that it has been signed and witnessed as provided in paragraph (1).
Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1207
What an unrevoked refusal does (d)
Except as otherwise provided in § 20-17-1208(h), in the absence of an express, contrary indication by the individual set forth in the refusal, an individual's unrevoked refusal to make an anatomical gift of the individual's body or part bars all other persons from making an anatomical gift of the individual's body or part.
Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1207
A revocation is not a refusal (b)
A donor's revocation of an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under § 20-17-1206 is not a refusal and does not bar another person specified in § 20-17-1204 or § 20-17-1209 from making an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under § 20-17-1205 or § 20-17-1210.
Ark. Code Ann. § 20-17-1208