Refusal to make anatomical gift; effect of refusal · Nevada
Nevada: how to refuse organ donation
If you came here to get off the registry
Is removing the donor designation enough in Nevada?
Taking your name off the organ donor registry is a revocation. So is removing the designation from your driver’s license. Under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.562, Nevada 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 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.561 is the section that says so. It has to be signed.
Both provisions are quoted in full below, from Nevada’s own code.
What Nevada asks
What you need to make a refusal in Nevada
- 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.
- Nevada law
- Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 451.561, 451.562
- 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 Nevada’s enacted code, in full and unedited.
How a refusal is made (1.)
A natural person may refuse to make an anatomical gift of his or her body or part by: (a) A record signed by: (1) Him or her; or (2) Subject to subsection 2, another natural person acting at his or her direction if he or she is physically unable to sign; (b) The natural person's will, whether or not the will is admitted to probate or invalidated after his or her death; or (c) Any form of communication made by the natural person during his or her terminal illness or injury addressed to at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness.
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.561
How it must be witnessed (2)
A record signed pursuant to subparagraph (2) of paragraph (a) of subsection 1 must: (a) Be witnessed by at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness, who have signed at the request of the natural person; and (b) State that it has been signed and witnessed as provided in paragraph (a).
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.561
What an unrevoked refusal does (4.)
Except as otherwise provided in subsection 8 of NRS 451.562, in the absence of an express, contrary indication by the natural person set forth in the refusal, a natural person's unrevoked refusal to make an anatomical gift of his or her body or part bars all other persons from making an anatomical gift of the natural person's body or part.
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.561
A revocation is not a refusal (2.)
A donor's revocation of an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under NRS 451.559 is not a refusal and does not bar another person specified in NRS 451.556 or 451.566 from making an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under NRS 451.558 or 451.568.
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.562
What the donor checkbox authorizes
What Nevada law says about research and education
"Transplantation or therapy" is not limited to organs. Under the uniform passing rules, if the part is tissue the gift passes to a tissue bank; if an eye, to an eye bank; if an organ, to an organ procurement organization. Bone, skin and tendon used in surgery are therapy. A donor who wants organs donated but not tissue must say so; the bare designation does not make that distinction.
Nevada goes further than most states. A plain “donor” designation here can also be used for research or education, which in forty-one other states it cannot. Nevada’s own words:
What a plain donor designation authorizes
6. If a document of gift specifies only a general intent to make an anatomical gift by words such as donor or organ donor or by a symbol or statement of similar import, the gift, in the absence of an express, contrary indication by the person making the gift: (a) If it is medically suitable for transplantation or therapy, must be used for transplantation or therapy ... (b) If it is not medically suitable for transplantation or therapy, may be used for research or education ... 7. [same rule, separately stated, for the words "body donor"].
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.571(6), (7)