The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Washington state could restrict mental health workers from attempting to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity through conversion therapy. A family therapist claimed the state was violating his free speech rights, but the court ruled for the state, “States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical treatments performed under the authority of a state license merely because those treatments are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel.” (Courthouse News Service, September 6, 2022, by Edvard Pettersson)
The Ninth Circuit panel said the ruling was consistent with a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that California could not make Christian crisis pregnancy center that opposed abortion to provide women information about how to end pregnancies. (Reuters, September 6, 2022, by Jonathan Stempel)