The Florida Supreme Court upheld a state law banning physician-assisted suicide Thursday, saying the practice was not protected under Florida’s constitutional right to privacy. The 5-1 ruling was made in a case brought by Charles Hall, a 35-year-old man near death from AIDS who has waged a legal battle to allow his physician to help him die. The ruling came less than three weeks after the Supreme Court upheld similar bans in two cases, saying states had the right to outlaw doctor-assisted suicides. Florida’s highest court made a distinction that actively assisting in another’s death was not the same as allowing someone to refuse medical treatment, which is legal. Justice Stephen Grimes said in a 23-page opinion: “The assistance sought here is not treatment in the traditional sense of that term. It is an affirmative act designed to cause death…. “
