Share this comment
The legal concept of “capacity” is more apt here than notions of criminal culpability. Since children’s brains are not fully developed, their ability to understand consequences and to make rational decisions is not quite ready for prime time, so we don’t allow them to make important decisions that will affect their future.
It’s interestin…
The legal concept of “capacity” is more apt here than notions of criminal culpability. Since children’s brains are not fully developed, their ability to understand consequences and to make rational decisions is not quite ready for prime time, so we don’t allow them to make important decisions that will affect their future.
It’s interesting that the APA says that children lack the capacity to get a tattoo (it’s “too permanent”), but they are perfectly capable of deciding to have parts of their body cut off, or have themselves chemically castrated.
That was my point essentially but I appreciate your taking the time to expand upon it. The idea is that a child's brain is not considered to be developed enough to form the specific intent to commit a criminal act but yet the child's declaration was deemed sufficient for experts to arrive at a gender dysphoria diagnosis. Your tattoo example illustrates how ridiculous it is.
And small children repeat what they hear so it could be just that's what he heard the TV say or someone else.