Justice Jackson’s Dissent, on Why Viewpoint-Based Restrictions on Professional-Client Speech May Be Permissible

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. These principles include the well-settled notion that context matters when evaluating First Amendment challenges to state regulation. The context that frames today’s debate is the kind of speech that is at issue here—what I am calling (as shorthand) “professional medical speech.” …

[A.] [P]rofessional medical speech occurs when a medical professional speaks to a client (1) in the context of the professional-patient relationship; (2) on matters within the provider’s professional expertise as defined by the medical community; (3) for the purpose of providing medical care.

First, professional medical speech is speech uttered within the bounds of the professional-patient relationship. That relationship imposes certain duties and restrictions on the medical professional. For example, medical providers are bound by the twin duties of beneficence (the obligation to act for the benefit of the patient) and nonmaleficence (the obligation not to harm the patient).

Second, professional medical speech is speech within the healthcare provider’s area of expertise as a member of the medical community. Within the professional-patient relationship, the professional has knowledge that the patient does not have, including knowledge of which medical treatments are appropriate and how to administer them. The patient comes to the provider to access that expertise, which is informed by—and constrained by—what the medical community knows.

Finally, and most importantly, professional medical speech is made for the purpose of providing the patient with medical care. This speech is a tool employed to treat patients. In this sense, professional medical speech facilitates the professional’s goal of providing the patient with the treatment, procedure, or healthcare that is within her expertise and that forms the basis of the professional-patient relationship.

[B.] Keeping in mind these characteristics of professional medical speech, consider the First Amendment principles that serve as guideposts for determining the level of scrutiny that a government restriction of such speech deserves.

First, and most fundamentally, is preservation of the marketplace of ideas. Indeed, the “whole project of the First Amendment” stemmed from the Founders’ desire to protect the “critically important” goal of having “a well-functioning sphere of expression, in which citizens have access to information from many sources.” Within the marketplace of ideas, speech that is expressive of the speaker’s thoughts and views is, generally speaking, highly valued.

But professional medical speech does not intersect with the marketplace of ideas: “[I]n the context of medical practice we insist upon competence, not debate.” The degree to which medical providers speaking within the boundaries of providing patient care can express themselves is limited because their interactions with patients are constrained by their well-established duties to those patients and the requirement that they meet the standard of care. Moreover, given these limits, professional medical speech does not necessarily involve the expression of ideas or messages, so it does not provide significant value to the general marketplace.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a robust marketplace of ideas within the medical community. Medical professionals contribute to that particular marketplace by writing papers, giving speeches, and pushing the bounds of the community’s knowledge through experimentation. And, indeed, the standard of care for a medical treatment can be greatly influenced and changed by virtue of such speech. It is there that truth competes for “accept[ance] in the … market.” But that marketplace exists outside the confines of the professional-patient relationship.

Within the confines of the professional-patient relationship, treatment-related “truths” are a given—they are set by licensing and malpractice standards, and it is not uncommon that such regulation incidentally restricts provider speech. Moreover, regulation of the practice of medicine is pervasively and unavoidably viewpoint based. The majority and the concurrence both resist this: They relentlessly deride Colorado for engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” by banning conversion therapy but permitting affirming care. But context makes that point ring hollow.

When a State establishes a standard of care, or punishes a doctor for providing care outside of that standard, it necessarily limits what medical professionals can say and do on the basis of viewpoint. A State can permissibly “prohibi[t] the administration of specific drugs for particular medical uses” but not for others. So, too, may it prohibit a doctor from encouraging a patient to commit suicide, or a dietician from telling an anorexic patient to eat less. Likewise, no one would bat an eye if a State required its doctors to discourage, but not encourage, smoking tobacco.

Even though these kinds of regulations are inherently viewpoint based, in the context of medical care, a State can certainly require the medical professionals it licenses to stand on one side of an issue. Though these proscriptions certainly promote a viewpoint, in this context, that alone does not suffice to establish a presumptive First Amendment violation. Instead, under the “speech incident to conduct” doctrine, the challenged laws must also operate as speech-suppression tools, designed to vanquish free expression.

But, here, Colorado’s clear aim is enforcement of a standard of care that is indisputably applicable to the State’s licensed healthcare professionals. Taking a position as to how those providers should handle a medical issue is the very essence of standard-setting—once again, this kind of viewpoint-based regulation ensures “competence, not debate.” My colleagues’ contrary conclusions are puzzling, for a standards-based healthcare scheme cannot function unless its regulators are permitted to choose sides.

A second and corollary First Amendment principle is the listener’s interest in receiving information. In the professional medical context, however, informational asymmetry shapes the listener’s interest. To be sure, “[r]espect for patients’ autonomy is a cornerstone of medical ethics.” But that interest is not served by receiving all existing opinions—only information about treatments that are within the standard of care advances patients’ interests. Patients are not in a position to wade through medical discourse and independently evaluate the best treatment for their circumstances. Their interests as listeners are thus limited by the nature and purpose of the professional-patient relationship.

Third, and finally, the First Amendment protects a speaker’s autonomy. “‘[T]he fundamental rule of protection under the First Amendment [is] that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message.'” But, here again, with respect to professional medical speech, healthcare providers do not have autonomy; when it comes to providing treatments for their patients, they are bound by the standard of care and are not generally free to “choose the content” of their message. Put differently, although medical professionals do have an autonomy interest in communicating their ideas to the patients they are treating, that interest only extends to treatment-related advice and information that is consistent with the standard of care….

[C.] The majority … insist[s] that it is antithetical to the First Amendment for a State to incidentally restrict a healthcare provider’s treatment-related speech based on a “prevailing ‘standard of care'” because “[m]edical consensus … is not static; it evolves and always has.” The mutability of medical standards tells us little about the First Amendment’s scope in a country where medical standards are enforceable by law and govern the treatment-related conduct of professional healthcare providers.

Like it or not, treatment standards exist in America. And those standards necessarily reflect the expert medical community’s current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments, whatever those beliefs might be. Medical standards are driven by science (objective facts and data), but, naturally, they are not viewpoint neutral. Consequently, the people win—not lose—when a State incorporates medical profession’s viewpoint into laws that require licensed treatment providers to conform to prevailing standards of care. For this reason, the Court has long recognized a State’s power to regulate to protect its residents even in the face of uncertainty.

{The majority laments that, because medical consensus is “not static,” a law like the MCTL might operate to “silenc[e]” professional speech going forward even if medical consensus swings the other way. Illustrating this problem, the majority points to shameful parts of this country’s past to show the dangers that can come from regulation that relies on outdated medical practices … (citing Buck v. Bell (1927)).

But the majority does not mention that, if the standard of care does change, the state legislature has the power to change the law in response to that evidence. The majority’s point seems to be that States should not be permitted to enact (rigid) laws based on current scientific thought because expert opinions might shift over time. But those uncertainties—which have always existed—are no reason to abandon medical standards or to alter how the law has traditionally accommodated scientific discoveries. The potential that medical consensus may change in the future does not mean that the Constitution prevents a State from acting today to protect its residents from what medical experts currently believe is a harmful medical treatment.}

Put differently, States impose treatment standards incorporating the current consensus of medical experts to protect state residents from harm. And they do this to ensure that professionals provide patients with high-quality care. A State that, alternatively, pursues an agenda of purposefully silencing critics, muzzling opponents, or targeting views it considers threatening would, of course, violate the First Amendment. But it behooves us all (and especially courts) to see and know the difference.

{Under my analysis, evidence of speech targeting or suppression could include the fact that the challenged state regulation does not, in fact, reflect current medical consensus. If a State enacts a treatment prohibition that substantially diverges from the medical community’s present beliefs, the law might well be a pretext for illicit speech-targeting objectives. Far from requiring “reflexive deference,” proof of such motivation would be unearthed, and carefully examined, as part and parcel of a court’s proper “speech incident to conduct” inquiry, since the doctrine is only applicable to reasonable State regulations.}

[D.] The centuries-long tradition of States using their police powers to establish and enforce the standards of care that bind medical professionals—including those who use speech to administer treatments—is another indication that heightened scrutiny does not and need not apply here. The majority’s opinion largely omits this broader historical record. But, when consulted, that history demonstrates unequivocally that the MCTL is neither unusual nor inherently suspect. [For more details, see the opinion, starting p. 57. -EV]