There were two very different laws in the news this week that concern what an adult individual can freely do with or to his or her own body and life.
The first law was actually a bill introduced on Wednesday by federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. The act is basically a replacement for the prostitution laws struck down by the Supreme Court back in December. The Court struck down the provisions on communication, keeping a common bawdy house (brothel), and living off the avails of prostitution, as it determined that those provisions of the law made sex work more dangerous. The Tories had a year to pass a new law, and this is it. The law makes communication illegal in most locations, makes it illegal to live of the proceeds of prostitution, and makes it a crime to purchase, but not sell, sex.
The second law in the news this week was the passing of bill 52 in the Quebec National Assembly. The “dying with dignity” law is the first law of its kind in Canada. It allows a framework for terminal patients in Quebec to ask for and receive medical assistance to die.
Both laws come down to a person’s right to choose. It is firmly my belief that an adult person of sound mind should be able to determine what they want to do with their own body. As a society we should try as hard as we can to help people avoid having to make these decisions in the first place. We should make sure that terminally ill people are as comfortable as possible and try to keep their quality of life as high as possible for as long as possible so that they need not feel that an end of life decision needs to be made. If that means making available powerful pain relieving drugs, including opioids, then we should do that. However, once someone has freely made the choice to end their own life, then we should respect their right to determine what happens to their own body. Quebec has got it right.
An adult person should also be able to decide what they are going to do with their own body with other consenting adults. I concede that many people are in the sex trade and participate in sex work against their will. As a society we should be making sure that these people have a clear and easy way out of this trade, or a way to avoid it altogether. Nobody should be in sex work that doesn’t want to be there. However, if someone has determined that they want to work in the sex trade, then we should respect their right to do so. It is not my place, or the government’s, to tell consenting adults what they can or cannot do with their own body.
There is a certain smugness to the prostitution bill. The Court told the federal government exactly the kind of bill that could not be passed, and the government introduced exactly that bill. The new bill actually reintroduces at least two of the three provisions struck from the original law, just reworded. The Court said that any provisions that made sex work more dangerous for sex workers would be unconstitutional. There is no doubt that this bill will make sex work more dangerous. Making the purchase of sex illegal, something that was never the case before, means that the purchaser will want to transact in more dangerous locations for the sex worker. There is no way that this new bill, after becoming law in a Conservative dominated House, will survive a constitutional challenge, and there is no way that MacKay doesn’t know this. That is the most maddening part, he is openly demonstrating his contempt for the court, which, as John Ivison points out in his National Post article, goes against his duties as Attorney General of Canada.
I find it disheartening that the Conservatives and their base abandon their core principle that government should stay out of the way of the daily economic pursuits of the populace. Apparently, that only applies if that economic pursuit does not make them feel icky or goes against their own religious or moral beliefs. I just don’t understand how their beliefs get to run roughshod over someone else’s beliefs. To me imposing your own moral code onto someone else who does not share it is unethical.
The other part of the prostitution bill that I find disheartening is the insistence of the government to confuse the matter by making this about child prostitution and human trafficking. Child abuse and human trafficking are already illegal, as they should be. I agree that any prostitution law should be crafted in such a way to minimize these occurrences, but this bill does not do that. By making the consenting adults criminals also, it makes the child abusers and human traffickers harder to find in the now larger crowd of lawbreakers.
What would have made more sense would have been a new law based on the “New Zealand” model where brothels are legal and health requirements including mandatory use of condoms are strictly followed. Add other protections for the safety and security of the workers as needed, including strict ownership rules for brothels. Not allowing recent immigrants to work in legal brothels would also help in the prevention of human trafficking in the industry. The Conservatives had a chance to actually help sex workers with real protections for their safety, but instead chose to play politics by playing to their base. It’s politics at its worst.
In the end, it all comes down adults choosing what they want to do with their lives. The government’s only role in this is to make sure that nobody is doing something against their will. A free society means at the very least the freedom to one’s own self.
Quebec seems to understand the concept; Ottawa does not.
