Refusal to make anatomical gift; effect of refusal · Vermont
Vermont: how to refuse organ donation
If you came here to get off the registry
Is removing the donor designation enough in Vermont?
Taking your name off the organ donor registry is a revocation. So is removing the designation from your driver’s license. Under 18 V.S.A. § 5250h, Vermont 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 18 V.S.A. § 5250g is the section that says so. It has to be signed.
Both provisions are quoted in full below, from Vermont’s own code.
What Vermont asks
What you need to make a refusal in Vermont
- 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.
- Vermont law
- 18 V.S.A. §§ 5250g, 5250h
- 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 Vermont’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) an advance directive executed pursuant to chapter 231 of this title; (2) a record signed by: (A) the individual; or (B) subject to subsection (b) of this section, another individual acting at the direction of the individual if the individual is physically unable to sign; (3) the individual's will, whether or not the will is admitted to probate or invalidated after the individual's death; or (4) 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.
18 V.S.A. § 5250g
How it must be witnessed
The advance directive shall be dated, executed by the principal or by another individual in the principal's presence at the principal's express direction if the principal is physically unable to do so, and signed by two or more witnesses at least 18 years of age, who shall sign and affirm that the principal appeared to understand the nature of the document and to be free from duress or undue influence at the time the advance directive was signed. Subsection (c) bars the agent, spouse, parent, adult sibling, adult child and adult grandchild from witnessing.
18 V.S.A. § 9703(b)(1), (c) · Advance directive execution, reached by § 5250g(a)(1)
What an unrevoked refusal does (d)
Except as otherwise provided in subsection 5250h(h) of this title, 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.
18 V.S.A. § 5250g
A revocation is not a refusal (b)
A donor's revocation of an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under section 5250f of this title is not a refusal and does not bar another person specified in section 5250d or 5250i of this title from making an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part under section 5250e or 5250j of this title.
18 V.S.A. § 5250h
What the donor checkbox authorizes
What Vermont 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.
Vermont 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. Vermont’s own words:
What a plain donor designation authorizes
If a document of gift specifies only a general intent to make an anatomical gift by words such as “donor,” “organ donor,” or “body donor,” or by a symbol or statement of similar import, the gift shall pass in accordance with subsection (g) of this section, and the parts shall be used for transplantation or therapy, if suitable for those purposes; if not suitable for transplantation or therapy, the gift may be used for research or education.
18 V.S.A. § 5250k(f)