The bodily integrity case for yes on Colorado’s Prop 135

Proposition 135 on this fall’s ballot would prohibit sex-change surgery on minors. Call it “gender-affirming surgery” if that makes the amputation sound more compassionate.

I’ll admit, I struggled with how to vote. Not because I think children should undergo these surgeries, but because I’m suspicious whenever government barges into a family’s decisions.

The question is whether stopping these surgeries is a legitimate function of government.

The sovereign individualOn emotional issues, like this one, it’s worth asking whether your vote grows out of principle or emotion. If you haven’t figured out your guiding principles, you’re just emoting with a ballot.

My overriding principle is every human being is sovereign unto himself — his own nation, his own kingdom. As sovereign, an adult has the right to speak, worship, own property, defend himself, associate with other sovereigns or tell them to get off his lawn.

He also owns his own body.

That includes the right to tattoo it, pierce it, poison it with gas-station sushi or surgically alter it. Other people may consider those choices foolish or grotesque, but it isn’t their body and not their business.

Government’s proper job, with very limited exceptions, is to protect individual liberty, not coerce people for their own good.

Which, naturally, brings us to seat belts (yeah, I know, but stay with me). I despise mandatory seat belt laws for adults. There is something inconsistent about screaming “my body, my choice” on one issue and then demanding other people’s bodies be strapped down against their will.

If an adult wishes to meet his windshield at 80 mph, that is between him and the laws of physics.

Further, as a supporter of Darwinism, I don’t want to keep stupid people in the gene pool longer than need be. Seat belt laws do that (note that the Kardashians were not a thing before seat belt laws. Coincidence?).

Kids are differentBut I strongly support seat belt laws for children.