{"id":20788,"date":"2013-12-20T15:39:33","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T20:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=20788"},"modified":"2013-12-20T22:57:41","modified_gmt":"2013-12-21T03:57:41","slug":"canada-supreme-court-strikes-down-prostitution-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/canada-supreme-court-strikes-down-prostitution-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada Supreme Court strikes down prostitution laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the nation’s anti-prostitution laws.<\/p>\n

The high court deemed laws prohibiting brothels, communicating in public with clients and living on the profits of prostitution to be too sweeping.<\/p>\n

The ruling follows a court challenge filed by former and current sex workers.<\/p>\n

The justices’ decision gives the Canadian government one year to craft new legislation.<\/p>\n

All nine of the court’s judges ruled in favour of striking the laws down, finding they were “grossly disproportionate”.<\/p>\n

“It is not a crime in Canada to sell sex for money,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in Friday’s decision<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has a point: since prostitution is not illegal in Canada then, legally, brothels should be little worse than restaurants, \u201ccommunicating in public with clients\u201d is merely advertising and pimps are a form of publicity agent. Becoming a prostitute is clearly a legitimate career choice whose adoption by, say, one of McLachlin’s daughters \u2013 assuming he has any – would prompt little more than the raising of a parental eyebrow.<\/p>\n

Perhaps prostitution should<\/i> be illegal \u2013 at least that would be consistent.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the Ottawa government reportedly claimed “if the conditions imposed by the law prejudice [sex workers’] security, it is their choice to engage in the activity, not the law, that is the cause”.<\/p>\n

But the Supreme Court ruled it was not a choice for many.<\/p>\n

“Whether because of financial desperation, drug addictions, mental illness, or compulsion from pimps, they often have little choice but to sell their bodies for money,” Justice McLachlin wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Supreme Court didn\u2019t pay prostitutes much of a compliment by ruling that prostitution is not \u201ca choice for many.\u201d To claim a person is bereft of one of the distinguishing characteristics of humanity, free will – the potential a person has to make a choice that is not entirely conditioned by circumstance \u2013 is to regard her as less than human.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From here: The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the nation’s anti-prostitution laws. The high court deemed laws prohibiting brothels, communicating in public with clients and living on the profits of prostitution to be too sweeping. The ruling … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":10,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[2234],"class_list":["post-20788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-prostitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}