Euthanasia And The First Amendment

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of The State of
Florida v. Charles Hall. “Charles Hall is dying of AIDS and challenged the
State of Florida to let him die by a self-administered lethal injection
without fear of prosecution”(http://www.rights.org/ deathnet/open.html).
On January 31, 1997, a Judge ruled that Charles Hall could take his own
life with the aid of a doctor. Senior Judge S. Joseph Davis, brought in
from Seminole County, “found that Florida's strict privacy law and the
equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution entitled Hall, 35, and Dr.
McIver to carry out an assisted death without fear of prosecution” (Sun-
Sentinel, 1A). On February 11, 1997, Charles Hall's ruling was overturned
by the Florida Supreme Court: he no longer has the right to end his own
life. He will have to wait until May 9, 1997 until new arguments will be
heard. Hall, who has been deemed mentally competent, contracted the virus
in 1981 through a blood transfusion. “Some of the complications he is
encountering from the AIDS ...

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