Should minors have greater rights? [View all]

[white_wolf]

This is kind of a spin off from the 14 year old abortion thread, but I didn't want to derail that thread and this topic is something I've been thinking about for a while. Do you all think that minors should have more rights to make their own decisions than they currently have in the U.S.? Maybe it's because I'm not a parent, but it seems to me that the U.S. has a lot of overly strict laws designed to protect young people that seem to cause a lot of problems.

For instance the drinking age being 21 is just stupid in my opinion. It does nothing to stop underage drinking or underage DUI and likely makes them worse, because drinking is seen as cool since it's illegal. To be completely honest, I find the whole concept of being an adult at 18, but unable to drink to be completely illogical. If you can vote and be tried as an adult you're hold enough to drink.

Another example being the age of consent being 18, I know in some countries it is lower, I heard that Canada raised it to 16 a couple of years ago, and I think that might be a better age than 18, since I've heard stories of 18 year olds getting arrested for having sex with their 16 girlfriend/boyfriend. I think that age actually might vary from state to state, though, so it may not be a federal thing.

I'm sure there are other examples, and maybe because I'm not a parent I simply don't understand enough about the situations listed to have a say in these sort of debates, but it is something I've been wondering about. I'm not saying lower the age of adulthood to 16 or anything, but perhaps we should grant older teenagers more rights at around 16 and perhaps that would solve some of our problems such as underage drinking and driving. It's just a thought, let me know what you all think and I hope I haven't offended anyone.