The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Should the First Amendment protect what doctors can say to their patients in the privacy of the examining room? Weighing state prohibitions on gay conversion therapy, liberals have tended to think the state should be able to regulate medical treatment without worrying about free speech.

Now the shoe’s on the other foot: Florida’s ban on physicians asking patients about gun ownership puts liberals in the position of wanting to protect the doctor-patient relationship. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the Florida “docs vs. Glocks” law this week on the ground that the state’s interest in protecting gun ownership outweighs physicians’ free-speech interests -- a result sure to trouble liberals.

This decision is problematic in its application of free-speech law, as First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh points out. But what’s really wrong is our whole framework in using free speech to analyze communication between a medical professional and a patient.

senorgrand wrote:I mostly have a problem when:

1) doctors are asking patients questions and then forwarding that information to third parties
2) doctors feel the exam room should be their political soap box

KnightsFan wrote:

senorgrand wrote:I mostly have a problem when:

1) doctors are asking patients questions and then forwarding that information to third parties
2) doctors feel the exam room should be their political soap box

Which is what this law is meant to prevent.

Doctors aren't barred from the discussion when it is medically relevant. But they can't just ask you at the end of your physical, or when your kid has a runny nose.

CDFingers wrote:Here is a link to the decision in Florida (spoiler alert: doctors may be prevented from asking):

http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions ... 9.reh2.pdf

CDFingers

The Act codifies the commonsense conclusion that good medical care does not require inquiry or record-keeping regarding firearms when unnecessary to a patient’s care—especially not when that inquiry or record-
keeping constitutes such a substantial intrusion upon patient privacy—and that good medical care never requires the discrimination or harassment of firearm owners.
In doing so, the Act plays an important role in protecting what gets into a patient’s record, thereby protecting the patient from having that information disclosed, whether deliberately or inadvertently. The Act closes a small but important hole in Florida’s larger patient-privacy-protection scheme. Given this understanding of the Act, and in light of the longstanding authority of States to define the boundaries of good medical practice, we hold that the Act is, on its face, a permissible restriction of physician speech. Physicians remain free—as they have always been—to assert their First Amendment rights as an affirmative defense in any actions brought against them. But we will not, by striking down the Act, effectively hand Plaintiffs a declaration that such a defense will be successful.