Georgia's Supreme Court has struck down a law that restricts assisted suicides because it violates free speech rights.
The court unanimously agreed Monday to overturn a provision in the 1994 state law that makes it illegal to promote assisted suicide and then help carry it out, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The law does not explicitly ban assisted suicide but says, "Any person who publicly advertises, offers or holds himself or herself out as offering that he or she will intentionally and actively assist another person in the commission of suicide and commits any overt act to further that purpose is guilty of a felony."
That provision is unconstitutional because it only criminalizes some types of euthanasia but not others, the court ruled.
It does not override any laws that may be applicable to "the withholding or withdrawal of medical or health care treatment."
Justice Hugh Thompson, as quoted by the paper, wrote in the decision: "The state has failed to provide any explanation or evidence as to why a public advertisement or offer to assist in an otherwise legal activity is sufficiently problematic to justify an intrusion on protected speech rights."
Monday's ruling means that four members of a group called the Final Exit Network will not have to stand trial in connection with the 2008 suicide of 58-year-old John Celmer, who had cancer. It was their constitutional challenge that led the Supreme Court to review the law.
State legislators will have to rewrite the law if they want to penalize those involved in assisted suicides, or ban it altogether.
