Posted on 12/22/2013 5:18:00 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Something interesting happened in Canada this week, and for once it had nothing to do with Justin Bieber or Captain Kirk. Their Supreme Court effectively struck down the nation’s laws involving prostitution, though the definitions of the specific laws in question aren’t as straight forward as the title might suggest.
The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the country’s major prostitution laws, saying that bans on street soliciting, brothels and people living off the avails of prostitution create severe dangers for vulnerable women and therefore violate Canadians’ basic values.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing for a unanimous court, stressed that the ruling is not about whether prostitution should be legal or not, but about whether Parliament’s means of controlling it infringe the constitutional rights of prostitutes.
“Parliament has the power to regulate against nuisances, but not at the cost of the health, safety and lives of prostitutes,” she wrote.
“The prohibitions all heighten the risks. . . . They do not merely impose conditions on how prostitutes operate. They go a critical step further, by imposing dangerous conditions on prostitution; they prevent people engaged in a risky – but legal – activity from taking steps to protect themselves from the risks.” As you might infer from the judge’s comments, prostitution itself is apparently already legal in Canada. (Keeping in mind that Canadian law isn’t my strong suit. And who knows what those Canadians are up to anyway?) The laws in question dealt more with the ancillary activities surrounding the practice of the trade and mitigating the effects it has on the community, all of which were challenged on the unintended negative consequences they produced. For example, one law criminalized anyone “profiting from” prostitution. It was intended to eliminate the practice of pimps controlling the prostitutes and taking their money. But it also wound up making it illegal for anyone to provide security services (such as bodyguards) to the prostitute, leaving them more vulnerable to violence.
Another prohibited the establishment of brothels, seeking to prevent the negative impact on neighborhoods resulting from the trade. But this effectively put the prostitutes back out on the street. And of course, “street soliciting” was also prohibited, resulting in something of a conundrum. All in all, the court determined that the negative effects on the “sex trade” workers outweighed the possible benefits to the community.
None of this, though, addresses the underlying question of whether prostitution should be legal in the first place, a subject which Doug Mataconis takes up at Outside the Beltway.
All of this, of course, brings up the philosophical question of whether prostitution ought to be legal at all, whether in Canada or anywhere else. The libertarian answer, of course, would be that women ought to be free to engage in any profession they wish and that individuals ought to be free to engage in any voluntarily transaction they wish, as long as there isn’t force or fraud involved. The traditional objections to legalization are that that prostitution is often a profession that women are forced into, often when they are underage, and that it involves a significant amount of violence, force, and victimization. Much of those negative impacts, of course, are arguably an outgrowth of the fact it is illegal in most places. If you look at places where prostitution is legal, such as Nevada and certain places in Europe, many of those negative aspects of prostitution disappear for the most part, especially if there at least some regulation involved that is designed to ensure the health and safety of the women involved, and to ensure that people under 18 are not being victimized. The most significant point, though, seems to me to be that we are talking about what is called, fairly accurately, the world’s “oldest profession.” Whether it is legal or not, there is seemingly no place in the world where it doesn’t exist. Indeed, it’s even been found to exist among primates who have been taught how to use money. Given all of this, one wonders what the value in trying to ban the practice actually is. Randy gibbons with credit cards aside, the idea of legalization – or at least decriminalization to some degree – of prostitution in the United States is one we’ve been wrestling with for a while. I think it’s been fairly well established that the lives of real life prostitutes are rarely if ever the Cinderella romance tales of the “hooker with a heart of gold” described in Pretty Woman or Risky Business. But Doug does have a point in saying that a large number of the problems arising from the trade probably have their roots in the opportunities presented to other criminals by the fact that the business is illegal. And it’s equally true that a significant percentage of the women (or even men) who have “willingly” gone into the trade didn’t do so because it was a lifelong dream. Desperation was probably the cause in the majority of these cases.
But from the small L libertarian point of view, I’ve always had to ask what business the government has to tell someone that they can’t engage in that kind of commerce if it’s entirely consensual and results in the “worker” in question turning a profit. The demand is obviously there, has been for all of recorded history and is unlikely to go away any time soon. When they dug out the ruins of Pompeii, buried by a volcano almost 2000 years ago, one of the first buildings they found was a brothel. So is the goal for us to continue to suppress the activity as much as possible or to bring it out of the shadows, make it as safe as possible for those plying the trade and eliminate the profit motive for those who would exploit or commit violence against the prostitute for their own gains?
I wonder what the United States Supreme Court would say if the same question was put to them?
Sure why not? The way things are going, prostitution will be the only way many will be able to afford healthcare.
War on Women, anyone?
Give Obama time. He will regulate it and tax it.
Almost impossible to believe that things could get more upside down...but if you read the scriptures, you know that before the Savior returns, that this is exactly what is going to happen.
So, a ban on prostitution violates their "values," eh? The anti-value perhaps.
War on Women, they would have to bring back the draft to get me. Women been kicking my butt for over 50 years and no sign they plan to declare a truce. I, like the French, surrender.
Merry Christmas!
Either keep it illegal, or keep it legal, instead of this wink-wink crap that makes it legal but bans all of the side issues associated with it that in turns makes it illegal and puts the women at risk.
idiot and flawed rationale.
by this logic all the laws against theft will be struck down. major idiots.
Imagine if prostitution were legal all over. And then, imagine that, marijuana becomes legal. We’re going to end up with a lot of cops and law enforcement people losing their jobs, not to mention a lot of lawyers having to earn a living with other types of cases, or the country would end up with a lot less lawyers.
Hmmm...
... a lot less lawyers.
Looks like legalizing some things does have some positive outcomes. ;)
Upside down is so right.
Go back only 30 years and the real controversy would be someone suggesting that it’s acceptable to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender. That would cause the outrage, not the ol’ down to earth guy that tells us it’s a sin.
This article does not give much context to those who do not live in Canada.
The cultural basis for this ruling is based on the fact that Canada has its own equivalent of the ERA ( Equal Rights Amendment) for women. There even is a Canadian federal department dedicated to the matter:
Minister of Status of Women:
http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/abu-ans/min/index-eng.html
No stone will go unturned to assure the work conditions of women , even if the work is “illegal.” The answer to make prostitution safer for “women?” Make prostitution legal.Its the socialist , utopian fascist fix.
Then if ones wife or girlfriend turns femino nazi, just go down the street and pay for pretend affection.
Thank goodness that the USA did not go down THAT road.
Now, if we could only combine
the Canada prostitution and Utah polygamy laws,
HAREMS would be legal.
Yet.
Its pretty wild:
*****************************************************
http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/abu-ans/who-qui/index-eng.html
*****************************************************
Who we are
Status of Women Canada is a federal government organization that promotes equality for women and their full participation in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada.
Status of Women Canada works to advance equality for women by focusing its efforts in three priority areas:
•increasing women’s economic security and prosperity;
•encouraging women’s leadership and democratic participation; and
•ending violence against women and girls.
Status of Women Canada is responsible for providing strategic policy advice and gender-based analysis support, administering the Women’s Program, and promoting Commemorative Dates relating to women in Canada.
Our History
Since 1971, there has been a Minister responsible for the Status of Women. The Office of the Coordinator, Status of Women, was initially established in the Privy Council Office in response to a recommendation contained in the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970.
The Office of the Coordinator, Status of Women, became a departmental agency of the federal government on April 1, 1976. The Coordinator is an Order-in-Council appointment and is the Head of Agency. The Agency is funded by an annual budget approved by Parliament.
Our Mandate
The mandate of Status of Women Canada is “to coordinate policy with respect to the status of women and administer related programs” (1976).
Our Vision
A Canada where equality is achieved between women and men in all aspects of life.
Our Mission
To exercise leadership and work in partnership to advance equality and increase women’s participation.
To provide expert advice on how to take gender equality into account in developing the best policies and programs for all Canadians.
To support action and innovation that will lead to equality in communities across Canada.
OK, and I am supposed to give your argument any credence when you can't be bothered to capitalize correctly and apparently have never heard of adjectives, like in your case, idiotic. Then again you may be merely imitating Faulkner's stream of consciousness writing style. In any case, pointing the finger leaves three pointing back at you.
Well, you know what they say. Never get between a libertarian and his hookers and blow. Do you know how to create a libertarian? Just take a conservative and remove all common sense.
These days prostitutes compete with the women hooking up for free.
I’m not so sure prostitution is the money making business it may have been in the past.
I have never been able to figure out why the feminist movement didn’t demand the end to laws against prostitution...how dare you make a law controlling our bodies!!!
I was on my tablet. It’s just faster not to capitalize.
And I wasn’t calling YOU the idiot. I was calling the Canadian court the idiot.
“The libertarian answer, of course, would be that women ought to be free to engage in any profession they wish”..
Another crusade agains’t the “war on women”.
Dumb asses!
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