For laws to survive legal challenges, Candeub said it’s important the law be “narrow and focused.” However, he also said the Supreme Court “must [also] reevaluate its views on how age verification burdens free speech.” He noted that the precedent is based on “pre-smartphone decisions.”
Baasch noted that pornography websites, such as Pornhub, are trying to make similar free-speech arguments in court to strike down laws that require age verification. But, if states ensure there are privacy protections for adults, he said those challenges should not succeed.
“Legislators can make their age-verification laws particularly safe under the Constitution,” Baasch said, adding that “ID requirements are permissible in … a host of other settings.”
The panelists agreed that pornography also posed numerous dangers to adults, but Jashinsky noted that protecting children is “a higher priority” at the moment.
“Most young people don’t make it out of high school without seeing a stranger engaged in violent sex acts at least once,” Jashinsky said. “… That is not normal. That is trauma. That is mass trauma.”
Jashinsky said that “modern pornography is not natural,” noting that sex historically has been “between humans in an immediate physical context,” but it is now “preserved and sold” and “defined as transactional.”
Additionally, Jashinsky referenced studies that link viewing pornography with loneliness, anxiety, depression, stress, and the breakdown of marriages.
“To treat [the pornography epidemic] as anything less than a cultural emergency is to defend that status quo,” Jashinsky said.
Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency, based in EWTN News’ Washington Bureau. He previously worked at The Center Square and has been published in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.