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Senate hearing on Bill 184: professional bodies and survivors urge ban on conversion therapies for minors, debate scope of religious counseling
Summary
Witnesses and survivors told a Senate panel that conversion (reparative) therapies cause harm and violate professional ethics; they urged classifying such practices as maltreatment for minors and expanding the bill's reach to include unregulated spiritual counseling. Senators debated scope, parental rights and enforcement.
The Senate held a public hearing on Senate Bill 184, which proposes amending Puerto Rico's Mental Health Law (Law 408 of 2000) and the Law for the Safety, Welfare and Protection of Minors (Law 246 of 2011) to prohibit conversion or reparative therapies for minors and to treat subjecting a child to such therapies as maltreatment.
Lidael Vega, first vice president of the Colegio de Profesionales del Trabajo Social, told the committee the profession opposes conversion therapies and supports the bill's protections for young people. "Prohibir las terapias reparativas o de conversión nos encaminan a ser un país más justo y equitativo para toda la ciudadanía," she said, arguing the therapies violate social-work ethics and lack empirical support.
Alejandro Santiago Calderón, a social worker and survivor who said he underwent conversion processes between 2008 and 2013, described those experiences…
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