Persons who may execute an anatomical gift · Delaware
Delaware: how to refuse organ donation
If you came here looking for a form
How a refusal works in Delaware
Delaware does not set out a form your refusal has to take, but your refusal still counts.
The family members who could otherwise decide for you may donate only in the absence of a known objection by you, and a hospital or other recipient that knows you objected may not accept the gift.
Delaware also says that where you revoke a gift and include an objection or refusal, the people who would otherwise decide are shut out. Nothing has to be filed or witnessed in Delaware.
Want the donor designation off your driver’s license? How to remove it.
What Delaware asks
What you need to make a refusal in Delaware
- Act
- 1968 act
- Enforcement
- A person who knows of your refusal may not make the gift, and a donee with notice of it may not accept.
- Signing it yourself
- No formalities are prescribed for making one.
- If someone signs at your direction
- The same, whoever signs.
- Notary
- Its statute does not say.
- Delaware law
- 16 Del. C. §§ 2711, 2715
- Statute read
- 2026-09-02
Persons who may execute an anatomical gift · Amendment or revocation of the gift
The statute itself
Quoted from Delaware’s enacted code, in full and unedited.
How an objection operates (c), (d)
§ 2711(c): 'Any of the following persons, who are reasonably available, in order of priority stated, when persons in prior classes are not available at the time of death and in the absence of known objections by the decedent or by a member of the same or a prior class, may give all or any part of the decedent's body ....' § 2711(d): 'If the donee knows of an objection by the decedent or that a gift authorized by a member of a class is opposed by 50 percent or more of the reasonably available members of the same class or by a member of a prior class, the donee shall not accept the gift.'
16 Del. C. § 2711(d), (g)
What cannot be overridden here is a GIFT, not a refusal (§ 2711(d), (g))
16 Del. C. § 2711(g): 'A donor's gift of all or any part of the individual's body, as indicated pursuant to this chapter, including, but not limited to, a designation on a driver's license or identification card, donor card, advance health-care directive, will or other document of gift, may not be revoked by the next-of-kin or other persons identified in subsection (c) of this section, nor shall the consent of any such person at the time of the donor's death or immediately thereafter be necessary to render the gift valid and effective.'
16 Del. C. § 2711(d), (g)
A revocation is not a refusal (d)
Unless a revocation of a gift under this section includes an objection or refusal to make a gift of a part, it shall not prohibit a person listed in § 2711(c) of this title from authorizing such a gift.
16 Del. C. § 2715(d)
A card carried on you, in the statute (a)(4)
If the will, card or other document or executed copy thereof has been delivered to a specified donee, the donor may amend or revoke the gift by: ... (4) A signed card or document found on the person or in the person's effects.
16 Del. C. § 2715(a)(4)