When I was eleven, my parents had me sign the mortgage for our home. During the summer of my twelfth year, I drove a semi from June through mid-August. Before turning thirteen, I gambled away all of our savings.
I know what you’re thinking: Pfft! Manney is going off on one of his bizarre tangents: It’s sheer lunacy for anybody to think my parents shouldn’t trust my early-teen judgment, right?
It’s a poor analogy, but for those on the left who abuse their child for their own benefit, making life-altering choices is what they do.
Idiots.
Obviously, we keep our children away from such important decisions, not because they lack feelings or conviction, but because judgment grows with time, allowing them to consider their life experiences before making a more mature decision. Locking the medicine cabinet serves the same purpose: some doors remain closed until a child is old enough.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew that line by moving to ban transgender medical procedures for minors, calling it malpractice, a word that fits.
Permanent medical interventions need adult understanding, consent, and responsibility, something a child can’t provide, yet, because we live in a society that mistakes empathy for wisdom, we end up having to argue about something that should never be considered for children.
Surgeries and drug regimens meant to alter sex characteristics carry lifelong consequences: loss of fertility, compromised bone density, cardiovascular strain, and permanent dependence on medical care.
If a child expresses distress or if adults feel a sense of urgency, those outcomes simply don’t vanish. Traditionally, medicine steps in to slow down decisions when the risk outweighs the benefit. Pediatric care exists to protect developing bodies, not to satisfy adult expectations.
Children experiment with identity as naturally as they change hobbies. One year brings baseball cards, another guitars; then politics, fashion, or rebellion. It’s the job of parents to guide, reassure, and wait. Medicalizing confusion skips the waiting part, freezing a temporary state into an irreversible outcome. In these situations, that choice serves adults far more than it does kids.
Claims that minors fully understand sterilization, sexual function, or future parenthood collide with basic biology. Brain development continues well into the twenties, while risk assessment and long-range thinking mature slowly.
Even with parental approval, society limits decisions that cause permanent harm — well, it used to. Cosmetic procedures already face age restrictions; experimental interventions with lifelong effects deserve even higher standards.
International experience adds weight: Several nations that once embraced aggressive pediatric gender medicine reversed course after reviewing outcomes. Health authorities restricted or halted treatments for minors after finding weak evidence of lasting benefit and clear evidence of harm.
Former patients described rushed assessments, pressure to affirm, and a lack of genuine informed consent: Those voices didn’t come from politics; they came from pain.
Whenever the word “no” appears, the political left reacts with outrage. Dissenting doctors often face professional risk, hesitant parents receive moral lectures, and skepticism is labeled as cruelty.
That posture replaces science with ideology while ignoring an uncomfortable truth. Any irreversible procedure performed on a child reflects adult desires, not the child’s capacity. Children comply after adults decide.
Kennedy’s stance restores an older, steadier principle: Childhood should remain a protected space. Counseling, therapy, and family support allow exploration without permanently closing doors. Time itself resolves many struggles; when adulthood arrives, choices remain available, but when permanent solutions are rushed onto minors, they’re robbed of future autonomy.
Parents act as stewards, not owners. Society already accepts limits when parental choices risk harm: seat belts, schooling requirements, medical neglect laws, and child labor restrictions exist because protection sometimes means saying no. Preventing irreversible medical interventions for minors fits squarely within that moral framework.
Unfortunately, opposition won’t easily give up: Clinics, nonprofits, and pharmaceutical interests are building momentum around pediatric transition. Still, volume doesn’t equal truth. History tends to favor caution when enthusiasm outruns evidence.
Locks exist to keep harm out, not to deny freedom forever. Opening every door too early leaves scars that time can’t erase.
Serious debates involving children demand clarity without slogans or emotional blackmail. PJ Media VIP supports writers willing to slow the rush, question dogma, and defend childhood from adult agendas. Join the conversation and help keep medicine grounded in responsibility.
