Canada's MPs All Agree: Porn's Effect on Public Health MUST Be Addressed

Steve Weatherbe : Nov 17, 2016
LifeSiteNews

A $97 billion industry that makes up 35 percent of all internet downloads, that is easily accessible with the click of a button and that primarily features violence and the degradation of women is the primary sexual educator of our youth, starting from age 12.

(Canada)—[LifeSiteNews] A Conservative member's motion to study the health impact of pornography won rare unanimous support of all parties and members in the House of Commons. (Public Domain photo)

Northern Alberta, Member of the Parliament, (MP) Arnold Viersen, the driving force behind M-47, told the House that "as a first-term MP, the impact of violent and sexually explicit material was not an issue I expected to bring forward when arriving here a year ago, nor was it on my radar."

But women's and children's protection agencies across Canada deluged the former auto mechanic with materials and entreaties to do something about what the London Abused Women's Center called in a supportive letter, "a global public health crisis."

The motion calls for the Commons Standing Committee on Health "to examine the public health effects of the ease of access and viewing of online violent and degrading sexually explicit material on children, women and men."

Viersen told LifeSiteNews he could have asked that the Justice Committee examine the issue, but that committee can only recommend changes to the law or perhaps censorship of the Internet, an issue he was loath to raise. "I didn't want to go down that road," he said. Concentrating on the health implications was a good way to ensure all-party support and also to stress public education rather than legal restrictions. (Photo via Pexels/free download)

"I believe strongly in parental rights, especially to education," he said. Ultimately, he wants the same kind of widespread condemnation of pornography that has already occurred with smoking.

"Gradually the scientific evidence became known about smoking's impact on the heart and the lungs. Now that kind of information about the health impact of pornography on the user is also being discovered," he told LifeSiteNews. When pornography's harms become...

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