AI-generated summary, not yet reviewed by Better Utah staff. Please consult the bill text.

Utah law currently treats images or videos depicting sexual conduct with animals as part of the broader legal definition of "pornographic" material, meaning it is regulated alongside sexually explicit content involving people. This bill would pull that content out of the pornography framework and create a new, separate legal category called "obscene animal abuse material," which would cover both sexual abuse of animals and "animal crushing" — intentionally crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise seriously injuring an animal, with exceptions for veterinary care, farming, hunting, food slaughter, research, and self-defense. It would create a new standalone crime for producing, publishing, distributing, promoting, or helping a minor distribute this material, with penalties ranging from a class B misdemeanor for offenders younger than 16 to a third degree felony carrying a mandatory minimum $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail for adult offenders, and it would update numerous related laws — covering school property rules, search and seizure procedures, civil lawsuits over harm to minors, and organized crime statutes — so that this new category of material is treated the same way pornographic material is treated throughout Utah code.