Legalizing prostitution in the United States

First: "Do you think that the government will seriously check and test these girls after every day, week, or even month for STDS? Legalization fundamentally increases the risk of getting aids because more individuals visit these sites (explained in Contention 1), and the government cannot possibly monitor these sites every time they have sex, nor is it likely that they will every 500 times they have sex. " One thing that I forgot to mention was my actual answer to his question, which is YES. A few points that I would like to make: under my system brothels must have licenses to operate and would be tightly contolled and possibly taxed. Any brothel that doesn't comply will be shut down and the proprietor and other guilty parties jailed. The competition from legal brothels would drive illegal brothels (which would probably be dirtier and more expensive) pretty much out of business - thus reducing their share of STD spread. Legal brothels would not spread STDs as much because they would be required to send their prostitutes for regular (weekly) STD checks and to require customers to wear condoms. Any violation would result in immediate jail for the proprietor and others involved (zero tolerance). This would provide a large incentive to actually go for the weekly STD check and to require customers to wear protection, the opposite situation of what happens today, where there is little incentive for either. Also, if the IRS can tax every single business in the country (paying taxes is something very few businesses are eager to do), I fail to see how it would not be possible for the government to regulate prostitution (on things that brothels shouldn't be unhappy to do, like require protection), which would very likely remain a minor industry. Next, a clarification: in my previous post, I wrote: "There is a clear choice: unless it is a truly serious case of trafficking (in which case laws that are only anti-prostitution would not apply since it would fall under the 13th amendment and kidnapping and rape laws, so these cases are irrelevant to our debate). " I forgot to finish the sentence after the parenthetical statement. It should have ended with "there is a choice; the person in question can choose either to be a prostitute or not to be a prostitute. Taking the first option away doesn't make them seriously better off (in fact, as I have argued, it makes them worse off). " If we want to reduce prostitution, outlawing it isn't the way to go, since many women who choose to go into prostitution desperately need the extra cash; if a social welfare program can lift them out of the economic region where prostitution is the lesser of two evils (the other being poverty), that will reduce prostitution in a way that makes both the former prostitutes and any remaining prostitutes better off as well. And, to finish off this relatively brief post, I offer a few quotes (gathered from . http://wiki.idebate.org...): (from Marjan Wijers, LLM. Chair of the European Commission's Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings. "Women, Labor, and Migration: The Position of Trafficked Women and Strategies for Support", a chapter in 1998 book "Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance and Redefinition") - "Criminalizing the sex industry creates ideal conditions for rampant exploitation and abuse of sex workers…[I]t is believed that trafficking in women, coercion and exploitation can only be stopped if the existence of prostitution is recognized and the legal and social rights of prostitutes are guaranteed. " (from Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD, Founding Co-Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good. Sex Workers Outreach Project. ) - "Prohibition gives cover to traffickers. It allows them to use the laws against prostitution to intimidate, especially when it comes to children. Women and girls being held against their will are afraid to go to police because they will be treated as criminals. " (from "Trafficking in Human Beings - Third Report of the Dutch National Rapporteur. " The Bureau of the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking. ) - "The fight against THB [trafficking in human beings] for sexual exploitation is often confused with the battle that some people wage against prostitution. .. [T]here are disadvantages associated with a repressive approach, since such an approach does not distinguish between victims and independent sex workers, and clients will not play a role as a potential source of information on trafficking practices. .. It is often said in the media that the lifting of the general ban on brothels has led to more THB. This is not a correct conclusion. Before the lifting of the general ban on brothels, THB and other (criminal) abuses were taking place in all sectors of prostitution. Some of these sectors are now under control and can be assumed to have rid themselves of their former criminal excesses, or are doing so. .. It is possible that THB is increasing in the illegal, non-regulated or noncontrolled sectors. If this were to be the case, it still cannot be assumed that the extent of THB is now at the same or even above the 'old' level it was at before the ban on brothels was lifted. It is in fact likely that this is not the case, merely because not every client is keen to get involved in the 'secret' prostitution sector. " (from David A. Feingold, PhD, Coordinator of Trafficking-HIV/AIDS Programs, Culture Unit, UNESCO Bangkok) - "Sweden, for example, is much praised by antiprostitution activists for a 1998 law that aimed to protect sex workersby criminalizing their customers. But several independent studies, including one conducted by the Swedish police, , showed that it exposed prostitutes to more dangerous clients and and less safe-sex practices. "