Parents do not have a right to let their children chemically castrate themselves, or to marry
Tiana Lowe
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In an attempt to undercut a Missouri state Senate bill to ban cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and gender transition surgeries, Democrat Peter Merideth challenged Republican Mike Moon over his past opposition to a law raising the minimum marriage age from 15 to 16.
“You said actually that should be the law because it’s the parents’ right and the kid’s right to decide what’s best for them,” Merideth said.
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If you are Moon, do you: (1) Say that older teenagers marrying is preferable to them running away, and sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils; (2) say that you have “evolved,” often an easy get-out-of-jail-free card for politicians; or (3) proclaim that you know a 12-year-old who impregnated another 12-year-old and that it is totally wonderful and not perverted that their parents made the two marry?
Naturally, Moon picked option three, boasting that the couple is “still married.” As chaos ensued online, Moon tried to defend himself in a video, clarifying that the boy and the girl, who was actually 11, were not “forced,” and that he only supports peripubescent children marrying each other, not adults.
The funny thing is that Moon and Merideth are both missing the point, which actually applies equally to both child marriage and child gender transition. The point is that no, parents cannot just make any decision on behalf of a child.
Minor children cannot give informed consent to chemically castrating themselves. Despite false assurances that the drugs involved in so-called gender-affirming care are “reversible,” cross-sex hormones can impede fertility and also the ability to orgasm later in life. Similarly, a minor child cannot give informed consent to engage in the covenant — and presumably in much of Missouri, a holy sacrament — of marriage.
Furthermore, by definition, an 11-year-old pregnant minor is a rape victim. While some localities have “Romeo and Juliet” exceptions to statutory rape law — so, say, an 18-year-old boy having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend is not a crime — Missouri’s carve-out only applies when one of the parties is younger than 21 and the other between 14 and 17. Two sixth graders having sex is obviously a crime, and this is also the reason why an underage girl sexting either her underage or adult boyfriend is considered distribution of child pornography in most jurisdictions.
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The notion of an 11-year-old pregnant girl also introduces extremely sensitive questions that Moon might not want to address. The pregnancy in question, the result of a criminal act, would easily put an 11-year-old girl’s life and long-term health in jeopardy. A parent does not have the God-given right to allow a child to put himself or herself in a life-threatening situation so avoidable.
What the Left blasts as the GOP’s war for “parents’ rights” isn’t really about the parents at all but rather the protections we afford children until they can give informed consent. Whether the decision is for marriage (and with it sexual activity and pregnancy risk) or medical gender transition (which could entail the loss of sexual and reproductive function overall), the underlying principle is the same: Children have rights that necessarily preclude either their parents or the state from making certain decisions or allowances on their behalf.