Arkansas committee approves bill letting next of kin amend or revoke past organ-donor registrations after extensive public debate

Representative Matt Brown recounted a family’s bedside experience and urged lawmakers to give families the legal ability to change an earlier organ-donation designation. "It is the absolute most horrible decision I've ever had to make in my life," Brown said, describing delays and a conversation he called coercive while his father was dying. The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee approved House Bill 16-79 as amended after extended public testimony and a roll-call motion to pass.

The bill establishes a hierarchy for who may modify, revoke or amend a previously recorded anatomical gift when a potential donor is incapacitated at the time of death, aligning that hierarchy with the state’s disposition law. Representative Jimmy Gazzaway, a co-sponsor, said the bill "brings the law into alignment with how these decisions are already made in a host of other contexts," citing existing statutory frameworks for burial and cremation decisions.

Supporters, including funeral directors and several family members who said they had been surprised at bedside by organ-procurement approaches, told the committee they wanted legal clarity and faster timelines to prevent prolonged holds on bodies and distress for grieving relatives. Charles Fuller, president of the Arkansas Funeral Directors Association, said: "Pressure and sales tactics should never enter this picture. A trusted nurse or health care professional should be able to preface the phone call from Aurora, not to influence the family, but merely that they will be approached for donations." Robert Cailin, a funeral director, offered a similar, specific case in which a father and wife were in dispute and the funeral home sought statutory guidance.

Representatives of organ-procurement organizations and transplant groups opposed tightening family authority to override a recorded donor designation. Mark Tudor, chief executive officer at Aurora (the organ procurement organization that serves most of Arkansas), told the committee he came as "a CEO of Aurora, but more importantly ... as a donor father," and warned that the bill could reduce donations if registrants or their families opt out after passage. Tudor said Aurora would voluntarily enhance customer-service training and increase public education but said the state registry already counts about 1.5 million people.

Aurora officials and other OPO witnesses also described improvements in referral processes and donation rates, and they urged lawmakers to avoid changes that, in their view, could reduce organ and tissue availability and harm Arkansans on transplant waiting lists. Kevin Lee of Mid America Transplant said his organization supports additional public education and school-based programs to improve informed consent.

Committee members pressed witnesses on several factual points that were disputed in testimony: how often families reverse a donor designation at bedside, what federal reporting OPOs already file to CMS, whether tissue recovered for research differs from organs recovered for transplant, and how referral timing by hospitals affects whether an OPO can evaluate a potential donor. Aurora and hospital witnesses said many problems stem from late hospital referrals and that automated referral systems had reduced missed opportunities.

The amended bill requires reporting to state officials of certain donation and recovery statistics (the amendment uses fields similar to those reported to federal agencies) so the Legislature can review trends and outcomes. It also clarifies that, in cases where the decedent expressly and currently authorized donation, that recorded authorization still has force unless the specified family classes in the bill unanimously modify or revoke it under the circumstances the statute defines.

Testimony at the table was sharply divided. Funeral directors and several family witnesses asked for statutory clarity and a requirement that next of kin have priority to decide the disposition of remains and related anatomical gifts. Transplant recipients and clinicians warned that amending the registry posthumously will reduce available organs and cost lives; a heart-transplant recipient told members that overriding a donor’s choice would lengthen waiting lists and endanger patients.

The committee adopted amendments during the hearing to narrow parts of the sponsor’s original draft (the amendment removed or rewrote an initial consent section and focused the bill on who may amend or revoke an anatomical gift when the donor is incapacitated or when family disputes arise). After public testimony concluded, committee members voted to pass the bill as amended.

The statute references and operational details that guided much of the debate included the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (the federal-model framework for anatomical gifts) and the state statutory hierarchy used for disposition of remains. Witnesses repeatedly referenced Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) referral rules, hospital reporting obligations, and the operational practices of organ-procurement organizations.

What’s next: The bill passed the committee and will go to the next legislative stage. Lawmakers and OPOs told the committee they would continue negotiations on implementing language and reporting formats in order to reduce confusion for hospitals, preserve donor-family protections, and limit unintended effects on donation rates.

Ending: Committee debate signaled broad interest in fixing bedside breakdowns that family witnesses described as traumatic while also protecting the donor registry that transplant clinicians say saves lives. The amended measure seeks to codify a default family hierarchy for modifying a previously recorded anatomical gift and to add state reporting so legislators can track outcomes.