Child Pornography and the Supreme Court

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In this paper we shall present an important case involving the governments attempt to defend a child-protection law designed to guard minors against internet pornography. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 00-795, the court heard arguments over the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 (CPPA).(Ashcroft)

The production or possession of actual child pornography was illegal prior to 1996; the CPPA broadened the definition of child pornography to include images that merely appear to be children engaged in sexually explicit conduct -- for example, images of adults digitally altered to look like children -- or that convey the impression that the individuals involved are minors. The rationale behind the law was that it is not only the children involved in the creation of child pornography that are harmed, but that the images themselves are harmful because they incite pedophiles to abuse children.

In a 1982 case, the Supreme Court said that child pornography, like obscenity, should not receive First Amendment protection because children were abused in its...

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