When Raven Kinser walked into a Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office two summers ago, she completed a driver’s license application that included the option to register as an organ donor. The form provides a checkbox to opt in, but not one to opt out. Kinser left the donor registration box unchecked, reflecting her decision to reverse an earlier donor registration. Six months later, after she was declared dead at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, her parents say, they learned that her decision did not prevent organ procurement.
Raven’s case reveals a little-known gap in the U.S. donation system: There is no clear, nationally binding way to opt out — or to ensure a later “no” overrides an earlier “yes” in a different state.
This gap, along with a range of other issues related to the organ procurement system, has become a point of bipartisan congressional concern. Late last year, the House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight held a hearing examining what members described as shortcomings, including alleged consent failures.
The panel’s scrutiny of organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, and their consent practices is a first step toward a more meaningful accountability plan that could help maintain trust across the system, according to some committee staff members.
The trust in our organ procurement and transplant system “has been eroded,” said Rep. Te …