Anatomical gift act · Montana
In Montana you can refuse to donate by signing a writing the same way you would sign a document giving your organs, by a statement attached to or printed on your driver's licence or ID card, in your will, or by any other writing that identifies you as refusing. During a terminal illness or injury you can also refuse by telling at least two adults, one of whom has no interest in the decision. Once you have refused and not taken it back, no one else can donate your body or any part of it unless you said otherwise in the refusal itself. Mont. Code Ann. § 72-17-201.
If you came here to get off the registry
Taking your name off the organ donor registry is a revocation. So is removing the designation from your driver’s license. Montana law treats a revocation and a refusal as two different things, and only the refusal settles it.
A revocation withdraws the gift you made. It does not stop anyone else from making the gift for you. Only a refusal does that, and Montana requires one to be signed. Until you sign one, the decision is still open to someone else.
Both provisions are quoted in full below, from Montana’s own code.
What Montana asks
Making, amending, revoking, and refusing to make anatomical gifts by individual · Making, amending, revoking, and refusing to make anatomical gifts by individual
Quoted from Montana’s enacted code, in full and unedited.
How a refusal is made (11)
(a) An individual may refuse to make an anatomical gift of the individual's body or part by: (i) a writing signed in the same manner as a document of gift; (ii) a statement attached to or imprinted on a donor's driver's license or identification card; (iii) the individual's will, whether or not the will is admitted to probate or invalidated after the individual's death; or (iv) any other writing used to identify the individual as refusing to make an anatomical gift. (b) During a terminal illness or injury, the refusal may be an oral statement or other form of communication addressed to at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness.
Mont. Code Ann. § 72-17-201(11), (14)
How it must be witnessed
A donor or other person authorized to make an anatomical gift under subsection (1) may make a gift by a donor card or other record signed by the donor or other person making the gift ... If the donor or other person is physically unable to sign the record, the record may be signed by another individual at the direction of the donor or the other person and must: (a) be witnessed by at least two adults, at least one of whom is a disinterested witness, who have signed at the request of the donor or other person; and (b) state that it has been signed and witnessed as provided in subsection (3)(a).
Mont. Code Ann. § 72-17-201(3) · Document-of-gift execution, reached by § 72-17-201(11)(a)(i)
What an unrevoked refusal does (14)
Except as otherwise provided in subsection (18), in the absence of an express, contrary indication by the individual set forth in the refusal, an individual's unrevoked refusal to make an anatomical gift of the individual's body or a part bars all other persons from making an anatomical gift of the individual's body or a part.
Mont. Code Ann. § 72-17-201(11), (14)
A revocation is not a refusal (16)
In the absence of contrary indications by the donor, a donor's revocation or amendment of an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part is not a refusal to make another anatomical gift and does not bar another person specified in 72-17-214 or this section from making an anatomical gift of the donor's body or part. If the donor intends a revocation to be a refusal to make an anatomical gift, the donor shall make the refusal pursuant to subsection (11).
Mont. Code Ann. § 72-17-201(16)
You tell us your state, we show you what it asks for before you sign, and your page names the state you signed in. Your signed document is what carries legal weight. We host it and make it findable.