Not if it is an artists rendering.
The Government seeks to address this deficiency by arguing that speech prohibited by the CPPA is virtually indistinguishable from child pornography, which may be banned without regard to whether it depicts works of value. See New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S., at 761. Where the images are themselves the product of child sexual abuse, Ferber recognized that the State had an interest in stamping it out without regard to any judgment about its content. Id., at 761, n.12; see also id., at 775 (OConnor, J ., concurring) (As drafted, New Yorks statute does not attempt to suppress the communication of particular ideas). The production of the work, not its content, was the target of the statute. The fact that a work contained serious literary, artistic, or other value did not excuse the harm it caused to its child participants. It was simply unrealistic to equate a communitys toleration for sexually oriented materials with the permissible scope of legislation aimed at protecting children from sexual exploitation. Id., at 761, n.12.The end result is that if those pictures are the result of actual abuse, they remain illegal and possession remains a crime, as per the Ferber decision. If, however, they are simply the product of a twisted imagination, they cannot be banned under this decision. So it's not quite as clear-cut as "is it a drawing or is it a photograph?" - even a drawing would be illegal if the production of that drawing involved the actual abuse of real children.Ferber upheld a prohibition on the distribution and sale of child pornography, as well as its production, because these acts were intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children in two ways. Id., at 759. First, as a permanent record of a childs abuse, the continued circulation itself would harm the child who had participated. Like a defamatory statement, each new publication of the speech would cause new injury to the childs reputation and emotional well-being. See id., at 759, and n.10. Second, because the traffic in child pornography was an economic motive for its production, the State had an interest in closing the distribution network. The most expeditious if not the only practical method of law enforcement may be to dry up the market for this material by imposing severe criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product. Id. , at 760. Under either rationale, the speech had what the Court in effect held was a proximate link to the crime from which it came.