PHOENIX — Some Arizona lawmakers are pushing to have pornography declared as a public health crisis in the state.
HCR 2009, which doesn't really have an actual legal effect, denounces pornography as a "crisis leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts."
The house resolution introduced by Republican state Rep. Michelle Udall says porn "perpetuates a sexually toxic environment that damages all areas of our society."
The measure states pornography could have "detrimental effects" on its users including "toxic sexual behaviors, emotional, mental and medical illnesses an difficulty forming or maintaining intimate relationships."
The measure also says children are being exposed to porn at an "alarming rate," causing kids to have "low self-esteem, eating disorders and an increase in problematic sexual activity at ever-younger ages."
According to the measure, pornography increases the demand for sex trafficking and prostitution, and "normalizes violence and the abuse of women and children by treating them as objects."
Porn also, according to HCR 2009, can effect families as its "correlated with decreased desire in young men to marry, dissatisfaction in marriage and infidelity."
"The societal damage of pornography is beyond the capability of the individual to address alone," the resolution reads.
The measure calls on the Arizona Legislature to denounce porn and says the state must prevent exposure and addiction to it, educate people about its harms and develop recovery programs in order to counteract its "detrimental effects."
Similar porn-related legislation, House Bill 2444, would tax porn use to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.