Teaching Lifesaving Choices in Wisconsin

A Growing Crisis in Donation Participation

Wisconsin is facing a sobering reality: fewer people than ever are signing up to be organ donors, and blood donation rates remain alarmingly low. Over the last five months, roughly 2,000 Wisconsinites removed themselves from the state’s organ donor registry — the highest drop in state history. And while the need for blood remains constant, only 3 percent of eligible residents donate regularly.

This decline comes at a time when the national need is climbing. Across the country, one person is added to the transplant waitlist every eight minutes, and 13 people die every single day waiting for a match that never comes. Wisconsin lawmakers say this moment calls for urgent action — not pressure, but education.

A Bipartisan Effort to Close the Knowledge Gap

That’s why Senator Patrick Testin is joining a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers leading a new effort to increase awareness and reverse these troubling trends. This week, Testin, alongside Senator Sarah Keyeski and Representatives Benjamin Franklin, Nate Gustafson, and Lisa Subeck, began circulating a co-sponsorship memo for legislation that would finally bring organ and blood donation education into Wisconsin high schools.

Current law requires this information only in driver’s education courses—an outdated approach as just 25 percent of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2023. That means thousands of teens never encounter even the basic facts about the lifesaving potential of donation.

“We’re not trying to force anyone to participate,” Testin emphasizes. “We’re trying to give young people accurate information so they can make informed decisions.”

Bringing Lifesaving Education Into the Classroom

Under the proposed bill, Wisconsin school boards would be required to offer instruction on human organ and blood donation in at least one grade between 9 and 12 beginning in the 2026–27 school year. According to the Legislative Reference Bureau, the curriculum must include three essential components:

• Why organ and blood donation matters
• How great the statewide and national need is
• What the process looks like

Lawmakers point to a major benefit: education would come from factual, non-political, medically informed sources. Versiti Blood Research Institute and UW Organ and Tissue Donation have already developed updated, Wisconsin-specific materials to support schools and ensure the information is both accurate and accessible.

One Donor. Eight Lives Saved. Seventy-Five More Healed.

Behind this effort is a simple truth: education saves lives.

Just one organ donor can save up to eight people, and tissue donation can heal or improve life for up to 75 others. Yet without proper information, many young people say they feel unsure, uneasy, or simply uninformed about what donation really is. Lawmakers believe the classroom is the most effective and neutral place to change that.

More than 27 states already include similar instruction, and Wisconsin lawmakers say the results speak for themselves. Donation rates improve when students understand the process and feel empowered to decide for themselves.

Giving the Next Generation the Facts — and Patients a Chance

As the co-sponsorship deadline approaches on November 26, lawmakers hope their colleagues see the urgent need to act. With thousands of patients in Wisconsin and across the nation waiting for life-saving transplants, reversing the downward trend in donor participation has become a matter of life and death.

“This is about knowledge,” Testin said. “About giving the next generation the facts so they can choose — and giving countless patients a better chance at life.”