Resolved: Prostitution should be legalised

Thanks for accepting!IntroductionI will make two arguments that explain why prostitution should not be legalised.Just to clarify, in R1 when I said 'legalise prostitution', I am referring to the legalisation of prostitution to a similar extent that the Netherlands and Germany have legalised it. This does not mean that the exact prostitution laws in these countries must be defended by Pro, all it means is that the extent of legalisation in these countries (personal prostitution, brothel ownership and pimping all being legal) is the extent to which Pro is arguing for in his burden of proof.A further implication of the extended resolution (stated in R1) is that the context of the debate is within a western society. This is because society is very different in cultures such as Thailand and Japan, and hence the debate would be too complex if we do not specify the type of society we are talking about.Argument #1 - Encouragement of prostitutionThis argument forms the following syllogism:P1: A harmful profession should not be encouragedP2: Prostitution is a harmful professionC1: Prostitution should not be encouragedP3: Legalising prostitution would encourage itC2: Prostitution should not be legalisedHarmful profession: a profession that harms those working in it and/or the wider society, and is unnecessary.Encourage: stimulate the development of something. (1)This argument is sound insofar as the logical steps between the premises and conclusions are unavoidable and indisputably correct - the conclusions are true insofar as the premises are true. Since the only points of contention are the premises, I must defend these premises in order to support the argument. Note that I only need to prove inductively that these premises are true, viz. I only need to prove that it is likely that the premises are true, not that they are necessarily 100% correct.P1I presume that my opponent accepts this premise, but for the sake of thoroughness I will defend it anyway.First, we must consider the role of the government. In a Western democracy, the government is voted in by the people to serve the people. Indeed, the government is only legitimised by the consent of its citizens, hence it exists solely to serve the interests of the populace (2). I will call this the serving of 'the common good of the people', which is the maximisation of the overall welfare of all law-abiding people, not just individuals or certain groups.They do this by making laws and providing assistance (welfare) and public services. But how do we establish a normative basis for what the government ought to do? Consider that a clock only exists to tell the time, a clock therefore ought to tell the time. In the same way, because a government only exists to serve the people, a government ought to serve the people. It doesn't make sense to ask why a clock ought to tell the time, given that we know why clocks exist. The same can be said of governments.As a legislating body, it follows that the government's laws should have, as their ultimate end, the interests of the people at heart. If a governmental action does not ultimately serve the people, then it does not come under what a government ought to do - it deviates from the principle that the government should serve the people.The government should not encourage a harmful profession because doing so would not serve the common good of the people - it is contrary to both the welfare of those working in the profession as well as those who are negatively affected by the profession.Therefore, the government should not encourage a harmful profession.P2I argue that prostitution is harmful both for society and for women who work as prostitutes.For society:- Legalising prostitution encourages sex tourism, which in turn harms wider tourism and encourages a culture of promiscuity. Tourism workers in Amsterdam have expressed fears that 'visitors are vanishing along with the city's reputation'. (3)- The majority of men who visit prostitutes are either married or in a long-term relationship (4). It stands to reason that, since it is likely that men who cheat on their partners will get caught, the increased prominence of prostitution will increase the frequency of unfaithfulness within marriage. This damages marriage, which in turn is bad for society due to the negative social impacts of divorce.- There is a significant correlation between drug use and prostitution (5), so it is a reasonable inference that more prostitution will be accompanied by a higher prevalence of drug abuse. It goes without saying that drug abuse involves a plethora of negative social impacts, including unemployment, crime and health problems.For the prostitutes:- Ruchira Gupta MA, a researcher and activist in the field, wrote that:'we have seen that the women in the Red Light areas actually earn less as they grow older, get deeper into debt and suffer from multiple mental and physical health issues related to repeated body invasion. Their victimization is evident from any point of view physically, socially, and legally.' (6)- Melissa Farley PhD found that the prevalence rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in prostitutes is 'comparable to the rates of PTSD among battered women seeking shelter, rape survivors and survivors of state-sponsored torture'. (7)- About 80% of women in prostitution have been the victim of a rape (8). Rape has multiple negative effects including PTSD, depression, self-harm and substance abuse (9).- Prostitution is a dangerous profession; the mortality rate for prostitutes is 40 times that of the national average (10) and 70% to 95% of prostitutes are physically assaulted (11).The wealth of evidence I have just presented explains why prostitution can rightly be described as a harmful profession.C1This is a logical deduction from P1 and P2.P3This is fairly obvious; legalising prostitution is an act of tacit approval by the government that says 'prostitution is a legitimate profession'. This would encourage more women to enter the profession because of:1. Ease of recruitment by pimps (they no longer need to recruit whilst avoiding law enforcement).2. The industry would expand, and supply and demand would necessitate more women to become prostitutes.3. Women will not be put off entering the profession by the risk of criminal punishment.This is backed up by statistical evidence. In 1997, before prostitution was legalised, there were around 100,000 working prostitutes in Germany (12). But in 2005, three years after legalisation, this number has quadrupled to 400,000 (13). This increase cannot be attributed significantly to overall population increase, since the overall population only increased by 430,000 in this period (14). This is pretty solid empirical evidence that governmental legalisation of prostitution will, directly or indirectly, encourage prostitution as a profession.C2The conclusion, which is the negation of the resolution of this debate, logically follows from C1 and P3.With this argument, which I have cogently defended, I have concluded that prostitution should not be legalised.Argument #2 - Human TraffickingP1: Legalising prostitution is likely to increase the frequency of human trafficking.P2: Human trafficking is a harmful phenomeonP3: A government shouldn't make laws that increase the prevalence of a harmful phenomenon (except when it is necessary, which human trafficking is not).C: The government shouldn't legalise prostitutionP1The evidence for this is both theoretical and empirical. Theoretically, it stands to reason that legalisation of prostitution expands the industry, attracts more clients and consequently requires more prostitutes to meet the demand. Often, this causes the industry to get involved in human trafficking in order to provide more prostitutes.Empirically, we can see that human trafficking 'is least prevalent in countries where prostitution is illegal, most prevalent in countries where prostitution is legalized, and in between in those countries where prostitution is legal but procuring illegal.' (15)A second study concluded:'On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows...' (16)The presence of the strong correlation between levels of trafficking and legality of prostitution provides cogent empirical evidence in favour of the premise.P2Human trafficking has many negative effects and virtually no positives. Victims 'often suffer physical and emotional abuse, rape, threats against self and family, passport theft, and even death' (17). Since all of the above are clearly harmful, I am justified in asserting that human trafficking is harmful.P3As previously established, the government ought to serve the people. Since a harmful law doesn't serve the people, the government shouldn't make it.CThe conclusion logically follows.ConclusionI have presented two arguments that both negate the resolution. (1) Google: 'Define encourage'(2) https://www.constitutionalenforcement.com...(3) http://www.patheos.com...(4) http://www.50ish.org...(5) https://en.wikipedia.org...(6) http://prostitution.procon.org...(7) http://www.prostitutionresearch.com...(8) http://www.rapeis.org...(9) https://rainn.org...(10) http://www.rapeis.org...(11) http://www.psychiatrictimes.com...(12) https://en.wikipedia.org...(13) ibid.(14) Google: 'German population 1997'(15) http://link.springer.com...(16) https://ideas.repec.org...(17) http://www.justice.gov...