Supreme Court overturns Colorado ban on converion therapy

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4. Deadline Legal Blog-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steps out alone, again - this time on 'conversion therapy'

The Biden appointee made the rare move of dissenting from the bench, in the latest action separating her from her colleagues.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steps out alone, again – this time on ‘conversion therapy’

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https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-dissent-conversion-therapy

In her dissent, the Biden appointee wrote that the practice of seeking to “convert” a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity has been “widely discredited within the medical and scientific community” and found to cause “lasting psychological harm.”

Departing from Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion for eight members of the court, Jackson wrote, “The conclusion that a State can regulate the provision of medical care even if, in so doing, it incidentally restricts the speech of some providers, fully comports with the First Amendment’s animating principles.”

She continued: “Ultimately, because the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will get burned.” Until now, she wrote, licensed medical professionals couldn’t do or say whatever they wanted. States could regulate them, which, she wrote, contributed to the high quality of American care.

“Today, the Court turns its back on that tradition,” Jackson wrote. “And, to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.” She accused the majority of reaching this “momentous decision” without “adequately grappling with the potential long-term and disastrous implications of this ruling.”

The justice closed her solo dissent by worrying about the majority having opened a “dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect,” pushes the Constitution “into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion” and “risks grave harm to Americans’ health and wellbeing.”

I agree with Jackson's dissent. I believe that conversion therapy is close to torture. The fact that you can use "talk therapy" may open a dangerous can of worms. I strongly believe in the First Amendment but here there needs to be limits. Talk therapy is less objectionable compared to other methods of conversion therapy but it has risks.