By Andrea Picciotti-Bayer
A group of New York State lawmakers want to make prostitution legal in the Empire State. Not to be out done by her “progressive” sisters and brothers, California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris has made prostitution decriminalization a platform plank in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. When it comes to protecting vulnerable girls and women, these Democrats fall short – gravely short.
The New York state senators are pushing complete decriminalization. As they recently explained, they hope to introduce a bill that will rewrite state laws on prostitution and erase a prostitute’s prior arrests from criminal records. Their aim is to legitimize what they call the “consensual sexual exchange between adults.” Harris, for her part, prefers a modified version of decriminalization known as the “Nordic Model” after Sweden’s 1999 sex-purchase ban. This approach decriminalizes the person prostituted, but still makes buying people for sex a crime. In the end, however, complete decriminalization and limited decriminalization make for a distinction without a difference. Both denigrate women and their contributions to the world of work.
