San Diego, Calif., Nov 25, 2019 / 12:01 pm
The American Medical Association announced last week that it had adopted a number of new policies, including advocacy for a federal ban on "so-called reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity."
During the AMA interim meeting held in San Diego, the group's policy-making body chose to "develop model state legislation" to ban health care providers from efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity," the group said in a Nov. 19 statement.
"The support for legislative bans strengthens AMA's long-standing opposition to this unscientific practice," the medical association said.
Dr. William Kobler, an AMA board member, said that "conversion therapy has no foundation as scientifically valid medical care and lacks credible evidence to support its efficacy or safety" and that "it is clear to the AMA that the conversion therapy needs to end in the United States given the risk of deliberate harm to LGBTQ people."