Have you checked first that tattoos do not affect organ donation eligibility, or have any legal/medical weight whatsoever compared to, say, an organ donor card or check on your driver’s license?
It would be worth double-checking your local regulations, but tattoos do not generally restrict you from organ donation. You should make sure you get your tattoo from a licensed business, of course.
As far as legal status—that is a good question. I would think that as long as you updated it at least as often as you update your driver’s licence, it would remain a valid indicator of your intent. That might mean adding a date to the tattoo, and adding another one every few years. You might contact your local hospital and see what they would do if they had a fresh corpse with no ID but a organ donor tattoo…
I would think that as long as you updated it at least as often as you update your driver’s licence, it would remain a valid indicator of your intent.
Why? Doctors have procedures for how to deal with organ donations. That procedure means looking at driver’s license and organ donor cards. There are huge legal risks for them being creative.
I had to give up on trying to find out if a tattoo can count as consent on its own—I would guess that it would be iffy territory unless you had it notarized and witnessed.
It might still be worthwhile to have a tattoo; it does tell them that you have given consent, meaning that they will make an extra effort to look for consent (In the US this means a state database). This would only be relevant if you are found without your drivers license/ID. There are a number of fringe cases where you might be found dead and dying without easy access to your ID, but they are admittedly rare. They are also more likely to cases where your organs aren’t usable (fire, ravaged by bears, rip tide carries you out to sea). However, if the legal team gets any head start on finding a John Doe’s organ donor status, on average this is likely to result in increased organ salvage.
Here’s a revised suggestion, for social feasibility, effectiveness, and pain reduction: get a tattoo of a red heart and the words organ donor and your name in a protected area (e.g. on the side of your trunk, just below the arm pit). Until RDFI chips become common this is also probably one of your best protections against becoming a J. Doe (I mean, other than living a sane and safe life).
I had to give up on trying to find out if a tattoo can count as consent on its own
The core question isn’t whether it can legally count as consent but whether the process that a medical team uses when it finds a dead body recognizes the tattoo.
I am not a first responder, but if I had a pile of corpses and one of them had an organ donor tattoo, that corpse would definitely be flagged for special attention and quick transport to the morgue. I wouldn’t count on it being legal for them to make an extra effort to ID one body before another just based on (suspected) organ donor status, but making it into the refrigerator a bit earlier is a benefit.
I don’t have a driver’s license, but taking into account the possibility of …eligibility and what Tem24 said, it would seem definitely better to go about getting myself a card.
Sorry, I just thought somebody could have already asked that before.
Have you checked first that tattoos do not affect organ donation eligibility, or have any legal/medical weight whatsoever compared to, say, an organ donor card or check on your driver’s license?
It would be worth double-checking your local regulations, but tattoos do not generally restrict you from organ donation. You should make sure you get your tattoo from a licensed business, of course.
As far as legal status—that is a good question. I would think that as long as you updated it at least as often as you update your driver’s licence, it would remain a valid indicator of your intent. That might mean adding a date to the tattoo, and adding another one every few years. You might contact your local hospital and see what they would do if they had a fresh corpse with no ID but a organ donor tattoo…
Why? Doctors have procedures for how to deal with organ donations. That procedure means looking at driver’s license and organ donor cards. There are huge legal risks for them being creative.
I had to give up on trying to find out if a tattoo can count as consent on its own—I would guess that it would be iffy territory unless you had it notarized and witnessed.
It might still be worthwhile to have a tattoo; it does tell them that you have given consent, meaning that they will make an extra effort to look for consent (In the US this means a state database). This would only be relevant if you are found without your drivers license/ID. There are a number of fringe cases where you might be found dead and dying without easy access to your ID, but they are admittedly rare. They are also more likely to cases where your organs aren’t usable (fire, ravaged by bears, rip tide carries you out to sea). However, if the legal team gets any head start on finding a John Doe’s organ donor status, on average this is likely to result in increased organ salvage.
Here’s a revised suggestion, for social feasibility, effectiveness, and pain reduction: get a tattoo of a red heart and the words organ donor and your name in a protected area (e.g. on the side of your trunk, just below the arm pit). Until RDFI chips become common this is also probably one of your best protections against becoming a J. Doe (I mean, other than living a sane and safe life).
The core question isn’t whether it can legally count as consent but whether the process that a medical team uses when it finds a dead body recognizes the tattoo.
I am not a first responder, but if I had a pile of corpses and one of them had an organ donor tattoo, that corpse would definitely be flagged for special attention and quick transport to the morgue. I wouldn’t count on it being legal for them to make an extra effort to ID one body before another just based on (suspected) organ donor status, but making it into the refrigerator a bit earlier is a benefit.
I don’t have a driver’s license, but taking into account the possibility of …eligibility and what Tem24 said, it would seem definitely better to go about getting myself a card.
Sorry, I just thought somebody could have already asked that before.