La police des moeurs en France et la campagne abolitionniste

Published after the International Abolitionist Federation's (IAF) conference in Lyon (1901), de Morsier's text begins by outlining the long history of regulated prostitution in France. This discussion is interspersed with primary sources that help the author trace regulationism as a defining feature of commercial sex in France since 1254, when Louis IX banished all prostitutes from the capital city. After providing this historical overview, de Morsier defines regulated prostitution as an unfair system of preventative arrest and medical surveillance that encourages alcoholism, sex trafficking, and "coercive" hygienic practices that do not help to lower rates of venereal disease. The author then places the French abolitionist campaign in relation to domestic and international concerns and makes a call, in the French Republican tradition, for the preservation of individual rights (including prostitutes') over the collective interests of the state. The annex to the text includes a number of documents on regulated prostitution like administrative notes from the Prefect of Police, papers examining French soldiers' use of commercial sex, reports made by the French Academy of Medicine and various independent physicians, as well as transcripts from IAF conferences in Brussels and Lyon.