Legalize

Legalize What?

This story presents a very good opportunity to discuss that field of philosophy called consequentialism.

The research found that child sex crimes fell when child pornography was more easily accessible.

The discovery tallies with similar studies in Denmark and Japan, where child pornography is not illegal, that found incidences of child sex abuse were lower in those countries.

The conclusion of the new study is that ‘artificially-produced’ child pornography should be made available to prevent real children being abused.

I think that by 'artificially produced' they mean something like cartoons and animation. So, the idea is that legalizing cartoons about child rape will reduce the incidence of actual rape of real children.

For the sake of argument, let's say that is true; and furthermore, that the effect is large enough that we're talking about saving a fairly large number of children from being raped.

Does that justify legalizing child porn cartoons? Explain and defend your answer. :)