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90 Maryland Attorney General Reports and Opinions 3 (2005)

handle is hein.sag/sagmd0028 and id is 1 raw text is: HEALTH

ORGAN DONATION - GUARDIANSHIPS - WITH RESPECT TO
DECISION WHETHER TO DONATE A DECEDENT'S ORGAN OR
TISSUES, A GUARDIAN HAS PRIORITY OVER A PARENT
WHOSE PARENTAL RIGHTS HAVE BEEN TERMINATED
January 3, 2005
Julie Brandt, MSW, LCSW-C
Manager of Family Services & Program Development
Transplant Resource Center of Maryland, Inc.
You have requested our opinion concerning the authority to
grant consent for organ or tissue donation. You refer to §19-
310(d)(2) of the Health-General (HG) Article, under which a
parent has priority over a guardian for purposes of deciding whether
to consent to the donation of a decedent's organs or tissues. Your
question is as follows: Does this priority ranking remain in effect if
the parent is one whose parental rights have been terminated as a
consequence of the guardianship proceeding?
With your inquiry, you provided a letter of advice from
Marianne DePaulo Plant, Esquire, in which she commented that it
is highly unlikely that the Maryland General Assembly intended a
natural parent whose parental rights have been terminated to qualify
as a 'parent' under that section, and be given ... priority as a
representative for organ donation. Consequently, Ms. Plant advised
as follows: When a minor decedent's natural parents have had their
parental rights terminated, and you have obtained an order to that
effect, the most advisable course would be to comply with the
instructions of the guardian. For the reasons stated below, we
concur with this conclusion.

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