Prostitution cannot be defended on moral grounds. Neither can getting drunk every night, having sex with a new person every week, and other activities which are legal, but might strike many people as immoral and reckless. Some people find guns immoral. Does that mean we should ban all guns? Do the members of PETA have the right to ban eating meat?

Indeed, its perfectly legal for a person to have unprotected sex with an unlimited number of people. Yet, if so much as a cent exchanges hands, tat person has now committed a crime!

Outlawing a vice is not the only way to discourage it. Tobacco, for instance, is legal, but we tax and regulate the hell out of it. Legalize prostitution, but get rid of the pimps, ban street walking, tax it a lot, and require prostitutes to get checked for sex diseases every month and educate them in safer sex practices. At the same time, the government could encourage women (and men) to find another line of work.

Actually, I think that we should encourage people who find prostitution to be debasing to women to help prostitutes find another line of work.

This shouldn't be just dropped on the government-- it is something that affects our communities and we should help eachother, one person at a time.

What is missing from the discussion by opponents of legalization is a sane and straightforward discussion of what public policy would be best for the community. "It's wrong" doesn't tell us what we should do about it. We should ask "how is it wrong? What harms does it cause?" and only then "What should we do about it?"

To deny people the right to do immoral things means that we deny people the right to make mistakes. The goal should be to try to reduce the harm that comes from such mistakes to the greatest extent possible.

I do agree that when one sees a bunch of ladies of the night walking about an area the one gets the feeling of being in trash. This is a legit complaint from people. Making prostitution legal but confined to certain areas, along with other restriction takes it off the street.

STD are also a harm and making prostitution legal would reduce STD also.

Your point about measuring harm and really trying to understand why people do NOT want to make prostitution legal are good ones. My guess is that most so called moral people would just say 'because it is evil, you dumbass'.

Well as we discuss about torture just saying 'it is evill' isn't enough.

does the idea that "prostitution is degrading to women so we have to punish women for degrading themselves" seem rather sexist? I.e. we can't trust women not to degrade themselves, so we will pass laws to punish them for doing that.....

Note that there are specific concerns (mostly related to human trafficking and the modern-day slave trade) which ought to make prostitution a secondary concern. Although I support legalization, I think doing so only makes sense as part of a comprehensive policy aimed at stopping the real atrocity here-- the scamming of many young women into a life of slavery in developing countries by large and powerful crime syndicates.