Lethal Injection Under Fire Again

[Chaerophon]

Ah, but is that the government's job to say so, or the parents?

It's the government's job.

A 12 year old is not legally allowed to live without guardianship, not legally allowed not to attend school, etc. for good reason - the welfare of the child. These "limits" are not to be left up to the parent to decide, because should the parent choose an alternate path for the child, there is a reasonable social consensus around the idea that that decision would be to the detriment of the child's eventual ability to act as a functioning citizen capable of the rationally revising their own goals / surviving as functioning and contributing members of society capable of reasoned decision - in sum, the child will be damaged.

The point is this: should the parent choose to condone such an act (illegal sex with someone much older at the age of 12), it amounts to neglect or abuse: there are certain rights that are socially secured for the child. It is NOT the state's job to dictate the terms of child-rearing to the parents, and there is enormous flexibility allowed to parents in terms of what they teach their children, etc.; however, there are certain limits that cannot be crossed, for the sake of the child, who is not capable of understanding all of the ramifications of certain decisions for him/herself. One of these limits would be crossed in encouraging or even just condoning the sexual relationship of a 12 year old and a 21 year old, full stop.

I suppose that this boils down to an empirical question: is a 12 year old capable of making such a decision for themselves? My own suspicion is that if they're choosing to have sex with someone much older than themselves, there's something funny going on, NOT TO MENTION the fact that the person who is having sex with them has some real problems.