Chiles v. Salazar · ¶162

For one thing, this history helps us to be confdent that what Colorado is doing here is actually regulating medical care, not suppressing messages. The record shows that States have routinely enacted laws that establish and enforce the standard of care, and that serves as a backdrop for an understanding of how States have acted historically to protect their residents from harm. The majority is right about one thing, however: A State will always say that its law just regulates the provision of medical treatments, while the challenger will inevitably argue that the State's law nefariously targets speech qua speech. See ante, at 648. A lengthy tradition of similar regulatory efforts by States—or the absence of one—helps courts to ferret out who has the better of that argument.

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