Judge Blocks Arkansas Law That Lets Families Stop Organ Transplants

A federal judge on Aug. 4 blocked a new Arkansas law that would have allowed relatives to block organ donations.

U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. ruled after a hearing that a nonprofit that procures organs from deceased people is likely to suffer irreparable harm if a preliminary injunction is not granted while its case against the law proceeds.

Moody also said that the organ procurement organization, Southern Legacy of Life, is likely to succeed in the case.

Organ procurement organizations are federally cleared groups that help procure organs from donors.

Southern Legacy of Life, which operates out of Little Rock, Arkansas, sued the state on July 31 over the law, alleging it “causes utter chaos to the existing system of national organ donation, the result of which will be a certain loss of life.”

Under the organ transplant system, when people who have committed to donating organs die or are close to death, organ procurement organizations rush to match the person with people who require donated organs. Logistics include carrying out rapid testing, preparing for surgery, and arranging for transportation for the organs.

“Every minute saved in the process increases the likelihood of a successful recovery and transplant. Conversely, any delays in the process increase the likelihood of organ dysfunction or failure,” Southern Legacy of Life stated in a lawsuit. “The unfortunate reality is that any patient on the waiting list may die before another viable organ becomes available, and even the preparation for a transplant which is aborted may pose risks to the recipient.”

Under the system, established by federal law, donations cannot be amended or revoked by any person other than the donor.

The Arkansas law would have changed that to allow any person within eight levels of kinship to revoke a donor’s status. If the state law stands, then it would be “impossible or impracticable” to recover organs from donors within the hours necessary to preserve the functions of an organ because organ procurement organizations would need to conduct a search for kin that would take days to months, according to the suit.

“Act 861 makes an irrevocable lifetime decision to become an organ donor contingent on the post-mortem approval of as many as eight categories of family members. The burden, complexity, and uncertainty of satisfying this requirement all but eliminates the likelihood that the decedent’s decision to save lives of others by donating organs for transplant will be honored,” it stated.

The nonprofit said that those requirements violate the Constitution in part because they are preempted by federal law.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican, had said in a statement to news outlets that he was reviewing the case.

“Waiting until the last minute to challenge laws that were passed months ago and then acting as though their pending implementation requires emergency relief is a far too common practice,” Griffin stated. “Emergency orders should be reserved for truly extraordinary circumstances.”

State legislators approved the law earlier this year, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed it in April.

Arkansas state Rep. Matthew Brown, a Republican and one of the sponsors of the law, said on the House floor during discussion of the bill that he dealt with the organ transplant system when his father recently died.

Brown said he was shocked to learn that organ procurement organizations can override families that choose to remove loved ones from life support, resulting in patients being left on life support against their families’ wishes for hours or even days.

He also learned that the family of a person who had not signed up to be a donor can, if their family member becomes incapacitated, authorize that person to be a donor, but that family cannot do the opposite and revoke donor permission.

“The consent only goes one way. What I was shocked to learn is that your power of attorney under current law has no right to modify that consent in the hospital in any way, shape, or form,” Brown said.

“So even if your loved one has changed their mind, even if your loved one has told you their wish is not to be an organ donor, or to say you have my lungs and hearts and kidneys, but please leave my skin because I’d like a viewing at my funeral home, you have no right to make that change.”