Chiles v. Salazar · ¶144

In my view, the majority is mistaken to equate treatment- related speech rendered in the context of providing medical care with any spoken words uttered by any other speaker. See, e. g., ante, at 644 (“While the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech. And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage”). The majority is also wrong to insist 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.” Ante, at 654. 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…

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