Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Ohhhhh. My bad.
18 was never a religious milestone. Neither was 21. It was a social one, because we had to draw the line somewhere. Literally had to --- you can't have a sliding scale of adulthood between 12 and 21. "You've been drafted, but you're 16, so we'll put you in the, um, National Guard as a compromise." So we picked two milestones. It's not like you're substantively different on one side of 18 than on the other, unlike the line drawing necessary for procedure/murder. But you are legally responsible for your own fuck ups, including bad sexual decisions, on the other side of that milestone.
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Thanks, Sidd -
And, Atticus, so too with drawing lines in the case of abortion.
I had a kid born at 8 months. To hell with anyone who tells me she wouldn't have been worthy of the full protection of the laws whether born then or if she'd stayed on the inside another week.
But my wife has also had pregnancies go awry in the early months. Yes, we mourned, but it's still not the same.
And somewhere in between there is a hopefully not entirely arbitrary line.
