Physician-assisted suicide presents one of the greatest dilemmas to the medical profession. Should someone who is
mentally competent, but deemed terminally ill, be allowed to engage in physician-assisted suicide? According to the
First Amendment of The Constitution of The United States, "one has the freedom to petition the government for a
redress of grievances." The Fourteenth Amendment states, "The State cannot deprive any person of life, liberty or
property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The
group believes that a terminally ill patient has the Constitutional right to decide whether or not to end his or her life with
the help of a licensed medical doctor. There have been many cases over the years where a terminally ill patient who is
mentally competent has made the choice to either partake in physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
"Physician-assisted suicide occurs when the physician provides the patient with the means and/or knowledge to
commit suicide"(Death and Dying,91). "Euthanasia is when the physician administers the death causing drug or
agent"(Death and Dying,92). The most recent case is that 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
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