PROSTITUTION AND ABORTION: SHOULD THEY BE LEGALISED?

By: Nor Katrina Anis binti Ahmad Ghani 1019664 Nurul Balkis binti Zunaidi 1011516

PROSTITUTION
SCENARIOS REASONS
PROS CONS

CONCLUSION

 In the Netherlands, prostitution in brothels and through pimps has been legal since October 2000, however workers must be 18 and clients have to be at least 16. In Costa Rica prostitution is legal and workers must be over 18 y/o and carry a health card showing how recently they had a medical check-up. Brothel = legal, but pimping is illegal. In Greece prostitution is legal, but each sex worker must be registered with the authorities. They only work if theyre over age 21 and have health checks every two weeks. In Italy prostitution is legal while brothel ownership is illegal, pimping is illegal and procurement and living on the earnings of a woman in prostitution is prohibited.

In the U.K. prostitution is legal, but soliciting in a public place, picking up prostitutes, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and facilitating contact with prostitutes is illegal.

 In France prostitutes must pay taxes and there are laws against soliciting in public places. Brothels are illegal, one cant buy or sell sexual services of anyone under age 18 and pimping is also illegal. In Canada prostitution is legal and the act must be done in private places and cant be done in a brothels. In public places is illegal. Brothels are illegal and pimping is illegal. In 1999, Sweden became the first country to make it illegal to pay for sex, but not to be a prostitute (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute). Similar laws were passed in Norway (in 2009) and in Iceland (in 2009).

POSITIVIST VIEW
a distinction between public and private acts was made in the Wolfenden report, which examined sexual activities (particularly homosexuality and prostitution). Some acts would effectively become legal within private settings, but illegal in public settings. The justification for this was the concept of shock or offensive to the public. Such a line was favoured by Joel Feinberg, who argued that it was a good reason in support of legislation if it effectively prevented "serious offence" to persons other than the actor.
to quantify the ideology behind the illegality of acts which in another setting would be acceptable (those acts themselves not causing harm, for example), for example nudity.

Since such acts publicly are made illegal on the basis of shock, then whether to criminalise depends on a shifting body of public opinion, which varies from place to place and from time to time.

JUSTIFICATION

PROS

1. Victimless Crime?
Prostitution should not be a crime. Prostitutes are not committing an inherently harmful act. While the spread of disease and other detriments are possible in the practice of prostitution, criminalization is a sure way of exacerbating rather than addressing such effects. ...What makes prostitution a 'victimless crime' in the sense that no one is necessarily harmed by it is that there are consenting adults involved."

 Unlike those feminists critical of prostitution, pro-sex work perspectives do not believe that prostitution sexual acts have an inherent element of coercion, exploitation, domination.

As such, pro-sex feminists instead assert that sex-work can be a positive experience for women who have employed their autonomy to make an informed decision to engage in prostitution.

BETWEEN TWO CONSENTING ADULTS

2. Morality of Prostitution
Why is it illegal to charge for what can be freely dispensed? Sex work is no more moral or immoral than the chocolate or distilling industries.
Catherine La Croix Founder of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE) chapter in Seattle "Love For Sale" in the magazine Internet Underground Oct. 1996

PROSTITUTION IN CANADA

PROSTITUTION AND VIOLENCE

Decriminalization would better protect people in the sex industry from violence and abuse.
...Police cannot and do not simultaneously seek to arrest prostitutes and protect them from violence.... 'What did you expect?' by police officers who refused to investigate acts of violence perpetrated against women whom they knew engaged in prostitution. The consequences of such attitudes are tragic: Gary Ridgway said that he killed prostitutes because he knew he would not be held accountable. The tragedy is that he was right - he confessed to the murders of 48 women, committed over nearly twenty years. That is truly criminal."
Melissa Ditmore, PhD Coordinator of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects Washington Post's PostGlobal website Feb. 28, 200

TO PROTECT PROSTITUTES

 This is a total opposite of preserving womens right.

In the end, criminalising prostitutions will render the prostitutes to be afraid to come forward to report any harm inflicted upon them. How is this preserving human right?

PROSTITUTION IN UK

Prostitution as a Legitimate Business

"Sex work is legitimate work and problems within the industry are not inherent in the work itself. It is vulnerability, not sex work, which creates victims. Sex workers should enjoy the same labour rights as other workers and the same human rights as other people."
Ana Lopes, PhD President of Britain's General Union (GMB) Sex Workers Branch "Stigmatising Sex Workers" in the Chartist Mar. 2006

Prostitution as a Career Option

Ari Armstrong, Founder of the Colorado Freedom Report, wrote "Legalize Prostitution to Reduce Harms" : "...[P]eople have rights to control their own bodies, even in ways that are demonstrably or potentially harmful. The only way to ban every dangerous act is to impose a police state. There is no good reason why the government should arrest people for prostitution or (select) drug use, but not for obesity, bulimia, promiscuous sex, or a host of other activities that can be far more harmful. It is wrong for the government to violate people's rights by arresting them for such activities, and it is morally correct to recognize people's rights."

 Mariko Passion, Founder of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) chapter in Los Angeles, in a Jan. 4, 2007 e-mail to ProCon.org said that: "Sex work most DEFINITELY is part of equal rights. The clients of sex workers are primarily men. The workers are all historically oppressed minority groups: Gay and Transgendered men, YOUTH, women and transgendered women. I have always seen sex work as a form of economic justice, and know many people who see it this way as well.

CONS
Feminists see prostitution as a form of violence against women "prostitution has always existed and will never go away", arguing that other violent acts such as murder, rape and pedophilia have also always existed and will never be eradicated either, and that is not a reason to legalize them. These feminists argue that the idea of legalizing prostitution in order to control it and "make it a little better" and reduce harm is no different than the idea of legalizing domestic violence in order to control it and "make it a little better" and reduce harm.

Prostitution is a victimless crime.

Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes against men, women, and children become a commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when he/she forces a prostitute to engage in sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp compels a prostitute to submit to sexual demands as a condition of employment, it is actually an exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts that are based on the prostitute's compliance rather than her consent
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and Response 1992

FREE CHOICE
The ILO [International Labour Organization] report admits that most women 'choose' prostitution for economic reasons. Surely no one can argue that this is free choice any more than the cattle in the squeeze chute choose to go to their death."
Diane Post, JD Attorney and Human Rights Activist "Legalizing Prostitution: A Systematic Rebuttal" in the journaloff our backs July 1999

Morality of Prostitution
Prostitution as an institution is evil. It doesn't matter if it is the 'world's oldest profession', it is still wrong."
Dorn Checkley Director of the Pittsburg Coalition Against Pornography "Legalized Prostitution?" on Wholehearted.org Jan. 22, 2007

Prostitution as a Legitimate Business

"One needs to completely rid oneself of the voracity for cash to see that prostitution, although legalized, can never be a legitimate business because it will always be associated with crime, corruption, class, mass sexual exploitation and human trafficking."
Virada Somswasdi, JD President of the Foundation for Women, Law and Rural Development (FORWARD) Speech at Cornell Law School Mar. 9, 2004

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE LEADING TO DEGRADATION OF WOMENS RIGHT

Prostitution as a Career Option

Some prostitution defenders argue that prostitution is an acceptable solution to poverty.... What they mean, but do not say, is that prostitution is an acceptable solution for women living in poverty. Seldom do we see proposals that poor men should make their way out of poverty by welcoming the insertion of sexual organs into them on a regular basis or dance naked on a stage in front of people. The prostitution industry exploits to its advantage the fact that most women and children who are in prostitution come from the most oppressed and vulnerable groups in society.
Gunilla S. Ekberg Special Advisor on prostitution

No rich woman wants to become a prostitute.

IT IS A HUMILIATING CAREER OPTION

 Brenda Zurita, Project Director for Concerned Women for America's (CWA) Crossing the Bridge initiative against sex trafficking and child exploitation, in a Dec. 14, 2005 CWA article, wrote: "...Abolitionists fighting to end sex trafficking see all prostitution as violent, exploitative and harmful to women, children and men. The distinction between forced and voluntary is a false one; it is all destructive and dehumanizing."

PROSTITUTION IN MALAYSIA
PROSTITUTION : LIMITED LEGALITY, PROSTITUTION IS NOT A CRIMINAL OFFENCE BUT SOLICITING IS ILLEGAL BROTHEL OWNERSHIP : ILLEGAL PIMPING :ILLEGAL

WHAT LIES BEHIND PETALING STREET?

PROSTITUTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND ENJOY THE DEBATE!

SO WHICH SIDE ARE YOU IN?