Even the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (2001), a worldwide organization opposed to prostitution, supports regular health checks, and governmental provisions for regular health checks, for prostitutes. Further, as Prorock (1999) states: "Legalizing prostitution nusually relies on monitoring practices, that decrease the transmission of STD's and unwanted pregnancies. Any way you look at it, STD's are a problem in almost any situation, but competent monitoring in a licensed service provides a certain measure of security" (p. 2). Liberator (2003, p. 12) concurs with: "There is a strong rationale for legalizing prostitution by regulating the industry, thereby monitoring sex workers and consequently the clients they serve. Allowing prostitution to remain invisible only perpetuates the spread of sometimes-deadly sexually transmitted diseases. A containment model based on managing the problem is better than an abolitionist model based on ignoring it, hoping it one day goes away all by itself."
Keeping prostitution Illegal Does Not Help Social Condition
Raymond (2003) and CATAW (2001) suggest that prostitution is bad for social conditions, but prostitution in and of itself, I feel, does not necessarily decrease social condition. Instead, I agree with Liberator (2003) that there is no proven connection between low crime rate and illegal prostitution. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. According to Liberator, "The countries where prostitution is legal do not suffer from a high number of violent crimes. It appears legalized prostitution does not make societies more of a crime hazard" (p. 11).
Also, according to Liberator (2003) countries like Denmark, with leagalized prostitution, who spend more on education, healthcare, and other necessities for each citizen, have lower suicide rates and lower divorce rates. The United States, with prostitution illegal, has higher crime rates, suicide rates, and divorce rates than countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, or Canada. "If we compare divorce rates between countries, we will understand the success of institutional monogamy under different social conditions. The United States is second highest, with eight times the divorces as
It is clear that the U.S. has a high turnover rate. Meanwhile, most countries with legal prostitution have less of a problem with institutional monogamy" (p. 13). It appears, then, that keeping prostitution illegal within the United States does not help the overall social health of our nation in terms of divorce, suicide, or crime rate. Criminalizing prostitution, then, seems not only to actually increase the crime rate in America and make many Americans physically unhealthier due to visiting prostitutes with undetected and untreated STD's, but may even increase the levels of social guilt and psychological unhappiness among Americans who visit prostitutes, as well as among the prostitutes themselves.
Conclusion have argued that despite prostitution currently being illegal in most parts of America, legalizing prostitution would be of more benefit than harm to the people of the United States. This is because (1) keeping prostitution illegal does not stop prostitution, but just drives it underground; (2) the physical of health of prostitutes could be better monitored if prostitution were legal, making it easier to detect and cure Sexually Tansmitted Diseases (STDs) in prostitutes, and keep prostitutes from spreading these diseases to clients and others, and (3) keeping prostitution illegal, as it is now, does not improve the social health of America, as some who oppose legalization would argue it does, in terms of crime rate, suicide rates, divorce rates, and overall
happiness. Prostitution may come with a social stigma, but legalizing and regulating it could only benefit prostitutes, their clients, and others, since, like it or not, prostitution in America is here to stay.
References
Carlson, P. (2000). Opposing forces. Unification News for February 2000. Retrieved Dec. 13, 2004 at http://www.tparents.org.UNNews/unws0002/Carlson_OppForces_.htm.
Coalition Report (2001). The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). Retrieved Dec.12, 2004 at http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:3xGAJTSGO6sJ:action.web.ca/
Home/catw/attach/...html.
Killingsworth, M. (2002). Column: Health, safety important reasons for legalization.
Kansas State Collegian. Retrieved Dec. 13, 2004 at http://www.kstatecollegian.com / stories/020502/opi_killingsworth.shtml.
Liberator, M. (2003). Legalized prostitution: Regulating the world's oldest profession.
Retrieved Dec. 15, 2004 at http://www.liberator.net/articles/prostitution.html.
Otchet, a. (1998). Should prostitution be legal? Retrieved Dec. 14, 2004 at http://www.unesco.org/courier/1998_12/uk/ethique/txt1.htm.
Rationale Behind the Legalization of Prostitution. Retrieved Dec 15, 2004 at http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/x/dxg237/prostitute.html.
Raymond, J. 10 reasons for not legalizing prostitution. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
International (CATW). Retrieved Dec. 13, 2004 at http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca
