Israeli doctors are banned from practicing gay conversion therapy: risk of mental harm.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation), by Rachel Savage - A ban on conversion therapies by doctors in Israel will help protect gay people from treatments that claim to turn them heterosexual, but more in-depth work is still needed with religious groups that support the controversial "gay cures," activists said on Wednesday.

Members who practice conversion therapies can now be expelled from the Israel Medical Association (AMI), which represents 90 percent of the country's doctors, if a complaint is made to its ethics committee, said the association's spokeswoman, Ziva Miral.

"Treatments to change someone's sexual orientation have been found ineffective and can cause mental harm, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies," the association said in a study outlining positions on the practice.

Conversion therapies, which may include hypnosis and electroshock therapy, are based on the belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is a mental illness that can be cured.

The practice is permitted in several countries, with the exception of Malta, Ecuador, and just over a dozen states in the United States, which have passed laws prohibiting it, according to ILGA, a network of LGBT+ advocacy groups. Several other countries are considering similar bans, including Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia.

Ruth Gophen, one of the authors of the AMI study published on Monday, said it is impossible to estimate how many Israelis have undergone conversion therapies because the treatments are often done in secret, as many doctors consider the practice unethical.

Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East—along with Jordan and Bahrain—that allows homosexual relationships, which in many countries in the region can be punished with the death penalty.