The legal issues of minor donors

Since I’ve been writing about the deaths of children, I figured I should include this bit about teenagers.

When a teen gets their learner’s permit (at age 15 here), they are asked if they want to join the registry to donate their organs and tissues after their death.  I remember stopping at this question when I received my first liscense.  Did I want to donate?  Fueled by the idealism of youth, you want to save the world- of course you want to donate organs! 

Unfortunately, the DMV didn’t offer me any further information about joining the registry.  All they offered was the great, but vague concept that I could donate my organs and save a life.

With no further information, I decided that I would check “yes” for donation, but wouldn’t sign the back of the card.  Maybe that would make it vague enough that my organs would be harvested only if someone else decided it was the right thing to do.  I now recognize that I was engaging in the same avoidance of death some donors have… an avoidance of the “d-words” (death and donation) that drives me crazy.

I knew that I would kind of like to be able to donate, but I didn’t have the knowledge or wisdom to think through the decision beyond that.  “Yes, I’m a donor- just don’t ask me what that means.  I’m 16- ‘death’ doesn’t really apply to me.”

Unfortunately, teenagers do die.  And if they checked “yes” on their liscense, they legally consented to donate.  Except… that they are a minor, so it doesn’t really matter what they decided, because it’s legally their parents’ decision.  (I know this would make many teens very angry if they were aware of it.)

Just this week, we received notification of the death of a teen who registered to donate, but his parents denied all donation.  This is fairly common, and pretty unfortunate.  I can’t claim that teens have great judgement (sorry, B), but it seems important to honor this decision.  After all, it’s probably the only planning regarding death that any teen has done.