October 12, 2021
National Review: Donna Rice Hughes Warns about Obscenity Crisis
By Wesley J. Smith
I have launched a new podcast through the Discovery Institute called Humanize — “where human rights meet human responsibilities” — in which I converse with thinkers and activists about issues germane to human dignity and our moral duties to each other, animals, and the environment.
In this week’s episode, I interview Donna Rice Hughes — president of the Internet-safety advocacy organization Enough is Enough — who campaigns against obscenity and child pornography. She convinced me that the obscenity scourge — we are not just talking nude photos — has reached crisis proportions.
Hughes discusses the impact porn has on children — both as victims of child pornographers and as consumers of adult content that they access on the Internet. She describes how pornography is a major cause of social dislocation, leading to divorce, abuse, rape, and a breakdown in healthy sexual relationships. She shows how the obscenity industry is a major driver of human trafficking and how “free” online Internet sites lure people into viewing ever more dark and violent images.