Senator Lee Introduces Online Age Verification Bill to Protect Teens from Pornography

Michael W. Chapman : Dec 20, 2022
CNS News

According to research cited by Lee's office, 80% of teens ages 12 to 17 are exposed to pornography online in the US. This exposure is damaging, "because of the unique psychological effects pornography has on minors, including anxiety, addiction, low self-esteem, body-image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and an increased desire among minors to engage in risky sexual behavior," reads the senator's summary.

[CNSNews.com] To help protect America's youth from the dangers of pornography, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill on Dec. 13 that would require all pornographic websites to use an age-verification tool to prevent kids under the age of 18 from accessing porn online. (Image: Pixabay)

"Every day, we're learning more about the negative psychological effects pornography has on minors," said Lee in a statement. "Given the alarming rate of teenage exposure to pornography, I believe the government must act quickly to enact protections that have a real chance of surviving First Amendment scrutiny."

"We require age verification at brick-and-mortar shops," he added. "Why shouldn't we require it online?"

According to a summary, the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, would do the following:

-- Directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule to require commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure that users of the website are not children.

-- Allow pornographic websites to choose their method of age verification provided that it meets the FCC's verification standards and prohibits a child from accessing the pornographic content on the website.

-- Permit websites to contract with third party age verification providers to carry out the verification requirements, and

-- Establish an audit process to ensure compliance with the rule as well as ensure no identifiable user data is shared with the federal government.

-- Grants the FCC the necessary enforcement powers (both civil penalty and injunctive relief) to enforce the verification rule.

Congress has passed legislation over the last 30 years to try to prohibit children and teens from accessing pornography. Those bills, however, were usually struck down by the Supreme Court as violating the First Amendment.

Nonetheless, "Within each case, the Supreme Court found that Congress did have a 'compelling government interest' to shield children from pornographic content, but did not use the least restrictive means to achieve such interest," said the senator. 

Lee's bill, requiring an age verification system—"the least restrictive means"—likely would pass constitutional muster.

According to research cited by Lee's office, 80% of teens ages 12 to 17 are exposed to pornography online in the US.This exposure is damaging, "because of the unique psychological effects pornography has on minors, including anxiety, addiction, low self-esteem, body-image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and an increased desire among minors to engage in risky sexual behavior," reads the senator's summary.

On a related note, 17 states have publicly recognized pornography "as a public health hazard that leads to a broad range of individual harms, societal harms, and public health impacts."

According to Melea Stephens, a marriage and family therapist and board member of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, "Numerous neuroscience-based studies have revealed the potentially harmful effects of pornography on the brain, in particular, the developing brain of children and adolescents.

"Today's mainstream pornography is no longer the softcore centerfold of past decades but is child-, incest-, and rape-themed, hardcore, violent, highly degrading material. Exposing a child to this material can have traumatic effects and is tantamount to a form of child sexual abuse.

"Today's hardcore pornography is also driving the demand for trafficked women and children. Internet pornography is shown to normalize the notion that women are sex objects to be used and men are users."

The states that have declared pornography to be a public health crisis include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Texas.

The Virginia resolution, passed in 2017, says, "...Resolved by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, that the General Assembly recognize pornography as a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms; and, be it resolved further, that the General Assembly recognizes the need for education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to address the pornography epidemic that is harming the people of the Commonwealth and the nation." Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here