X-Message-Number: 7676
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 11:31:29 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Florida case update

>From the Miami Herald, February 11/97

AIDING SUICIDE WON'T COST JUPITER DOCTOR HIS LICENSE

By LORI ROZSA
Herald Staff Writer

For now, Jupiter doctor Cecil McIver can help his patient Charles Hall
die without risking the loss of his medical license -- despite a vote by
the Florida Board of Medicine last weekend against physician-assisted
suicide.

The Board of Medicine agreed last year that if McIver prevails in the
courts on his quest to help the terminally ill Hall die if Hall wants
him to, the board would not find him in violation of any medical
practice standards.

That agreement, in the form of a court order signed by Leon County
Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark in Tallahassee, still stands, because two
judges have said McIver could help Hall die.

The state is appealing the issue to the Florida Supreme Court. In the
meantime, Hall, of Central Florida, has the legal right to ask McIver
for a lethal dose of medication -- a right no other doctor in the
country has.


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