(LifeSiteNews) — Former Vice President Mike Pence believes that once a gender-confused individual turns 18, society should allow them to remove healthy organs or get injected with testosterone.
But the former vice president and presidential candidate should consider how his position on transgenderism is at odds with his position on the sanctity of human life.
“What adults do in their lives, decisions that they make, including ‘transgender’ adults is one thing,” Pence told a professor during a recent town hall. “But for kids under the age of 18… there’s a reason why we don’t let you drive until you’re 16. In the state of Indiana, you can’t get a tattoo until after you’re 18. You can’t drink until after you’re 21. That’s because we understand that kids don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions.”
“I think at the end of the day, look, the idea that we are telling young, impressionable kids, that little boys that they can become girls or little girls that they can become boys, I just think is wrong,” Pence said during the event. “I’d like to put my arm around any one of those young people and just say we love you. But wait, wait until you reach an age of majority. Wait until you have a better idea of who you are. And then live the life that you want to live in this free country.”
He’s previously called himself “libertarian” on the issue of adults permanently severing their reproductive ability or women losing the capacity to breastfeed.
Does the truth change when someone turns 18, or are there enduring moral truths?
I posit that Pence, who has a long history of defending the preborn and opposing abortion, would say there are enduring moral truths. And here is the incongruity between his position on abortion and his position on individuals permanently altering their body to appear as the opposite sex.
Pence likely finds pro-abortion activists to be illogical when they argue that a preborn baby suddenly gets human rights when he or she exits the birth canal. He agrees that there is no “magical birth canal” that grants human rights.
But he does believe that there is a magical thing that happens when someone turns 18 – their choice to present themselves as the opposite sex somehow becomes realistic. He agrees it is “wrong” to tell boys that they can become girls and vice versa – but only until they turn 18. “Detransitioners” who began taking drug injections or had surgeries after they turned 18 would likely disagree with Pence’s argument that turning a certain age endows people with right reason. After all, we are talking about whether society should allow people to falsely claim they are the opposite sex and whether medical professionals should be able to profit off of someone’s gender confusion.
Yet he does not hold the same position on abortion. He does not think an 18-year-old should be able to freely choose to have an abortion, but a 17-year-old cannot have the same choice. Instead, he recognizes a biological fact and a moral truth – preborn babies deserve protection at the moment of conception, because they are human beings. The preborn baby in the womb of a 15-year-old has the same dignity and value and should have the same legal rights as the preborn baby in the womb of a 25-year-old.
Nor does Pence hold the same view when it comes to drug use. He correctly sees that some actions or substances are morally wrong and should be prohibited in totality, not just for minors. A pro-marijuana website reported on Pence’s history of opposing the decriminalization of drugs. “We’re to see marijuana become a gateway drug to even worse addictions on their part,” he said during a gubernatorial debate. “We need to get more serious about confronting the scourge of drugs, especially meth, in Indiana, and decriminalization is not the right path in my honest opinion.”
The former vice president draws an analogy to limits on drinking alcohol or getting tattoos to defend his limits for minors and to argue for no limits on adults. But that is a poor analogy.
A 20-year-old who drinks a beer one time may be breaking the law but won’t face any long-term health effects. That is not the same result for a teenage girl who has her breasts removed and loses the ability to nurse future children. Tattoos can also be removed.
Pence might do well to study Indiana’s tattoo laws as well and see what conclusions he can draw from them.
Indiana minors can get tattoos as long as their parents give permission. But there’s a caveat to adults getting tattoos that is a better analogy for Pence to consider.
Some counties prohibit tattoo artists from providing services to someone who is clearly intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. The reasoning is simple – individuals who are not in the right state of mind should not be allowed to make significant life decisions.
The same can be said of men who think they can become women or women who think they can become men. By definition, those people are not in the right state of mind. Mike Pence knows that abortion is wrong at any age – he should apply the same logic to surgical and chemical mutilation.