SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Legislature unanimously passed a resolution out of committee on Friday, declaring pornography a public health crisis.
Sponsored by Senator Todd Weiler, the resolution (S.C.R.9) recognizes that pornography is a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms.
The resolution calls for need of education, prevention, research and policy change in order to address the pornography epidemic.
Currently there are a total of 9 bills looking for changes regarding pornography in the state of Utah. Most of them have to do with child pornography and sexual exploitation.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), which has long worked on addressing the public health crisis of pornography, applauds this development.
„This unanimous vote is hopefully the first of many as the states begin to realize the devastating neurological, psychological, and sociological effects of pornography,” said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. „Pornography use is linked to a plethora of harms, from shrinkage in key areas of the brain, to increases in sexual violence, and to rising cases of porn-induced sexual dysfunction. Cigarette and tobacco use was once considered a healthy social norm before the science caught up with it, and this is what we are now seeing with the research about pornography.We commend Utah for taking the lead to address this public health crisis, and we expect other states will begin to address it as well.”
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation applauds the recent action and expects that soon other states will consider similar resolutions.
Article by Melissa Anderson and National Center on Sexual Exploitation; Haley Halverson