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LouisianaSB 4272026 Regular SessionSenateWALLET

DONATIONS: Provides for procedures and methods to execute gifts under the Anatomical Gift Act. (1/1/27)

Sponsored By: Thomas A. Pressly (Republican)

Signed by Governor

Health and Welfare

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

7 provisions identified: 6 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.

Stronger safety protections for organ donors

Beginning January 1, 2027, Louisiana bars recovery of an unpaired vital organ before legally determined death or when recovery causes or hastens death. Living donations remain allowed when lawful and not fatal to the donor. Permission to donate after death does not authorize procedures before death, unless another law expressly says otherwise. A procedure before death meant to help recovery needs direct medical benefit or separate, voluntary, informed consent from the patient or someone legally authorized to consent. That consent must describe the procedure and its recovery purpose. Even with consent, the procedure cannot materially risk hastening death, making vital functions stop irreversibly, preventing their restoration, or interfering with determining death. Someone independent of organ recovery and transplantation must perform it.

More ways to record donation choices

Beginning January 1, 2027, adults age 18 or older can make or refuse organ, eye, or tissue donations. You can use a signed document, a will, the registry, or a notation on a driver’s license, state ID, fishing license, or hunting license. A gift in a will takes effect at death without probate and survives later invalidation of the will. If you cannot physically sign, someone can sign at your direction with two adult witnesses, including one without an interest in the gift. The document must state that the signing and witness requirements were met. During terminal illness or injury, you can communicate your choice to a physician for prompt medical-record documentation, or before an adult witness without an interest in the gift who confirms it in writing. Medical-record documentation includes the date, time, recipient’s identity, and any witness confirmation. Refusals follow the same applicable signing, witness, authentication, and recording rules as gifts. You can expressly authorize an agent through a health-care power of attorney or another signed record, but the agent cannot make a gift if that record forbids it.

Protected access to Louisiana donation records

Beginning January 1, 2027, Louisiana’s health department can establish or contract for a state donation registry available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Authorized people can record gifts, refusals, changes, cancellations, confirmations, requests to record no decision, and informational choices by minors. Motor vehicle and wildlife and fisheries agencies must cooperate in sharing related records. Procurement organizations can check donation choices at or near death. Personal information otherwise requires express consent for use or disclosure. Nonstate registries must follow the law’s access and privacy rules and cannot replace the state-recognized registry except as state law allows.

Separate permission for donors’ after-death handling

Beginning January 1, 2027, planned transport or continued artificial support after death requires written notice before organ or tissue recovery. The notice goes to the person authorized to make the gift or the applicable authorized representative. Moving the body to another facility or continuing ventilation, perfusion, or other artificial support needs express permission covering that handling. Permission to donate alone is not enough. Handling and transport must respect the donor’s dignity and the family’s reasonable expectations.

Your donation choices bind other people

Beginning January 1, 2027, valid donation choices and refusals must be honored, subject to legal exceptions. Others generally cannot make, change, or cancel a donor’s active gift unless the donor’s document allows it. A gift or amendment made by another authorized person also generally cannot be changed by someone else. An active refusal generally blocks another person from making a gift, and its lawful limits and instructions must be honored. Revoking a gift or refusal withdraws that choice; it does not create a new gift or refusal. A revocation by someone other than the donor does not block another person from later making a gift. Giving one body part or choosing one purpose does not limit other gifts unless the decision says otherwise. A gift marked on a license or ID remains valid even if that document expires, is suspended, or is revoked.

Your newest valid donation choice controls

Beginning January 1, 2027, Louisiana recognizes donation choices valid under Louisiana law or the law where they were made. It also recognizes choices valid where the decision-maker lived, had a legal home, or was a national at the time. Louisiana law governs how recognized choices are interpreted and applied. The newest legally effective choice controls: a recorded gift replaces an earlier refusal, and a recorded refusal replaces an earlier gift. No recorded choice, or a request to record none, is neither permission nor refusal. People can presume a choice is valid unless they know it was invalidly made or revoked.

Parents oversee minors’ donation choices

Beginning January 1, 2027, emancipated or legally married minors can make gifts without the former driver’s-license authorization condition. For other minors, state and local agencies and their contractors cannot request a gift or refusal without a parent or guardian present. Recording or relying on the minor’s statement also requires that adult’s express written agreement. The statement is informational until age 18, when it becomes legally active unless changed or revoked; parents and guardians retain their own decision-making authority. Whenever a hospital refers someone at or near death, the procurement organization must reasonably search motor vehicle records and the recognized registry for donation choices and changes. If a minor with an informational record dies, the organization must reasonably search for the parents and offer them a decision. That record can inform the decision but is not itself permission or refusal. The parental search is unnecessary when the organization knows the minor was emancipated or legally married.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

  • Thomas A. Pressly

    Republican • Senate

Cosponsors

There are no cosponsors for this bill.

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 126 • No: 10

House vote • 5/13/2026

Read third time by title, amended, roll called on final passage, yeas 79, nays 10. Finally passed, ordered to the Senate.

Yes: 79 • No: 10

House vote • 5/6/2026

Reported with amendments

Yes: 11 • No: 0

Senate vote • 4/7/2026

Senate floor amendments read and adopted. Read by title and passed by a vote of 36 yeas and 0 nays; ordered reengrossed and sent to the House. Motion to reconsider tabled.

Yes: 36 • No: 0

Actions Timeline

  1. Signed by the Governor. Becomes Act No. 511.

    5/29/2026Senate

  2. Effective date 1/1/2027.

    5/29/2026Senate

  3. Signed by the Speaker of the House.

    5/25/2026House

  4. Sent to the Governor by the Secretary of the Senate.

    5/21/2026Senate

  5. Enrolled. Signed by the President of the Senate.

    5/20/2026Senate

  6. Read third time by title, amended, roll called on final passage, yeas 79, nays 10. Finally passed, ordered to the Senate.

    5/13/2026House

  7. Received from the House with amendments.

    5/13/2026Senate

  8. Scheduled for floor debate on 05/13/2026.

    5/12/2026House

  9. Read by title, amended, passed to 3rd reading.

    5/11/2026House

  10. Reported without Legislative Bureau amendments.

    5/7/2026House

  11. Reported with amendments (11-0). Referred to the Legislative Bureau.

    5/6/2026House

  12. Read by title, under the rules, referred to the Committee on Health and Welfare.

    4/9/2026House

  13. Received in the House from the Senate, read by title, lies over under the rules.

    4/8/2026House

  14. Senate floor amendments read and adopted. Read by title and passed by a vote of 36 yeas and 0 nays; ordered reengrossed and sent to the House. Motion to reconsider tabled.

    4/7/2026Senate

  15. Read by title. Ordered engrossed and passed to third reading and final passage.

    3/31/2026Senate

  16. Substitute for Senate Bill No. 311. Read by title and placed on the Calendar for a second reading.

    3/30/2026Senate

Bill Text

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