BISMARCK, N.D.—Republican lawmakers in the North Dakota state legislature are considering an anti-pornography non-binding resolution declaring porn to be a “public health hazard.” SCR 4017 was introduced by several state senators who were able to secure a “do pass” endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Now, SCR 4017 advances to the entire state Senate for consideration. Given the partisan makeup of the state legislature, sympathetic lawmakers in the Republican supermajority are likely to adopt the resolution. It is worth noting that only conservative Christian organizations testified in favor of adopting the resolution, and no other critics voiced concern for the precedent set by such political posturing against pornography and material that the First Amendment otherwise protects.
Much of the language used in SCR 4017 emulates popular talking points used by the anti-pornography movement, including claims that adults who watch legal porn are perpetuating sexual assault, the objectification of children, and the proliferation of sex trafficking.
Not only are these claims false, but they are broadly applied to any lewd, indecent or obscene depictions of sexually explicit activity. One common element of these pornography public health crisis resolutions is the lack of differentiating between illegal and legal materials.
For example, studio pornography produced by one or more consenting adults aged 18 years or older is not the same thing as illicit materials like child sexual abuse material or non-consensual intimate imagery produced by criminal elements.
The legal and consensual content is protected speech, whereas the illegal material is felonious in most jurisdictions in the United States. No credence is given to the efforts of adult entertainment companies and sex workers to counter abuse, human trafficking and child sexual abuse material.
Additionally, there is no scientific or sociological basis for resolutions like these that attempt to pathologize the consumption of pornography.
“The movement to declare pornography a public health crisis is rooted in an ideology that is antithetical to many core values of public health promotion and is a political stunt, not reflective of best available evidence,” argued Kimberly M. Nelson and Emily F. Rothman in 2020 for the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health. Nelson and Rothman are professors of community health sciences at the School of Public Health of Boston University. Both added, “Moreover, pathologizing any form of sexual behavior, including pornography use, has the potential to restrict sexual freedom and to stigmatize, which is antithetical to public health."
Sixteen other states have adopted similar legislative resolutions, including Utah. Utah was the first state to declare such a so-called crisis. States that adopted the public health crisis resolutions are predominately Republican-controlled and subject to far-right Christian conservatism and anti-pornography ideologies.
