Not really, the premise in this instance is that saving the life of one child is a positive worth more than the negative of many people being threatened by allegations of producing and consuming paedophilic material (some of whom many not be paedophiles). In this instance there's the accompanying assumption that a child's life is worth more than numerous innocent adults' freedom, which you're of course free to argue against - "if MANY adults are deprived of their freedom for something UNCERTAIN TO ACTUALLY WORK".
Obviously these perfectly reasonable rhetorical devices also assume that law is framed in terms of utilitarianism rather than inviolable principles[1], and unlike Gaiman assumes that one can do so because those enforcing the law are capable of using enough discretion to determine whether the sentence does more damages than the alleged crime. Either way, I don't think Gaiman's "they used to ban X and even Y on similar grounds, and look where that got us" is a more sophisticated argument.
[1]I think even people defending "icky" things on the basis of "inviolable" rights or principles have a threshold of "ickiness" where it starts conflicting with other inviolable principles they believe in. Presumably most of those who defend objectionable fantasy on the grounds of freedom of speech and expression don't consider the principle so inviolable it cannot be curtailed it when Creepy Uncle Dave moves into teen chatrooms to freely voice his opinion that teens should freely express themselves on webcam for him
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Not really, the premise in this instance is that saving the life of one child is a positive worth more than the negative of many people being threatened by allegations of producing and consuming paedophilic material (some of whom many not be paedophiles). In this instance there's the accompanying assumption that a child's life is worth more than numerous innocent adults' freedom, which you're of course free to argue against - "if MANY adults are deprived of their freedom for something UNCERTAIN TO ACTUALLY WORK".
Obviously these perfectly reasonable rhetorical devices also assume that law is framed in terms of utilitarianism rather than inviolable principles[1], and unlike Gaiman assumes that one can do so because those enforcing the law are capable of using enough discretion to determine whether the sentence does more damages than the alleged crime. Either way, I don't think Gaiman's "they used to ban X and even Y on similar grounds, and look where that got us" is a more sophisticated argument.
[1]I think even people defending "icky" things on the basis of "inviolable" rights or principles have a threshold of "ickiness" where it starts conflicting with other inviolable principles they believe in. Presumably most of those who defend objectionable fantasy on the grounds of freedom of speech and expression don't consider the principle so inviolable it cannot be curtailed it when Creepy Uncle Dave moves into teen chatrooms to freely voice his opinion that teens should freely express themselves on webcam for him