Refusal to make anatomical gift; effect of refusal · Massachusetts
Massachusetts: how to refuse organ donation
If you came here to get off the registry
Is removing the donor designation enough in Massachusetts?
Taking your name off the organ donor registry is a revocation. So is removing the designation from your driver’s license. Under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 8, Massachusetts 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 Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 7 is the section that says so. It has to be signed.
Both provisions are quoted in full below, from Massachusetts’s own code.
What Massachusetts asks
What you need to make a refusal in Massachusetts
- 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.
- Massachusetts law
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, §§ 7, 8
- 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 Massachusetts’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: (i) the individual; or (ii) 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 2 adults, at least 1 of whom shall be a disinterested witness.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 7
How it must be witnessed (b)
A record signed pursuant to subclause (ii) of clause (1) of subsection (a) shall: (1) be witnessed by at least 2 adults, at least 1 of whom shall be 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 clause (1).
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 7
What an unrevoked refusal does (d)
Except as otherwise provided in subsection (h) of section 8, 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 shall bar all other persons from making an anatomical gift of that individual's body or part.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 7
A revocation is not a refusal (b)
A donor's revocation of an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under section 6 shall not be a refusal and shall not bar another person specified in section 4 or 9 from making an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under section 5 or 10.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 113A, § 8