Pornography should be banned to save families, Ohio Senate candidate says

How can America bounce back from low birthrates? Ban pornography, said Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance.

What’s happening: According to HuffPost, Vance — a Republican Senate candidate and author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” — said in a “newly unearthed” interview with a Catholic magazine in August 2021 that he wants to ban pornography.

• “I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other,” Vance told Crisis Magazine at a conference for young conservatives.
• Vance’s campaign “didn’t provide a comment about his more recent thoughts on porn, and how they would factor into his priorities as a senator,” HuffPost writes.
• Vance won Ohio’s Senate Republican primary earlier this month after being endorsed by former President Donald Trump, according to The Guardian.
• In a statement following the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting that killed 19 children and two adults, Vance blamed a lack of familial support, saying, “We need to address the culture of fatherlessness and drug addiction in our country, focus on the importance of family so that our next generation is guided and empowered with strong support systems.”

Republican stance on porn: Although they haven’t called for an outright ban on pornography, the Republican Party in 2016 declared it a “public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions,” according to CNN.

• Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., made headlines last fall when he blamed efforts to fight toxic masculinity for pushing men to pornography.
• “Can we be surprised that after years of being told that they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?” Hawley said, according to The Guardian.
• In 2020, Utah passed a law that requires pornographic materials be labeled with a warning saying, “Exposing minors to obscene material may damage or negatively impact minors.”