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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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I am fairly sure experimental heart surgery isn't conducted on children without their parent's informed consent, and a refusal to subject children to experimental heart surgery isn't a basis for taking children away from the parents.

That is an entirely different objection, and at least in the UK, doctors have the ability to override parental decisions if deemed in the best interest of parents, especially if the child agrees. And the definition of child here is 16 and below, no line in the sand, as long as the doctors think they're able to understand the risks and benefits.

In less politicized contexts, if not heart surgery, kids can be taken away if their parents are doing an egregiously bad job at handling their health.

This is all true, and for all the many failings of British governance, things seem to work fine here.

I make no comment on whether or not gender affirming care is something that should be treated in this manner, only that the previous standard suggested was poorly formed.

Indeed, in the UK we admit that capability to make informed decisions does not start at some arbitrary birthday but is more fluid and depends on maturity of a person. This is mostly about some minor treatments such as morning-after-pill or HPV vaccine which is for their own benefit. I expect that a healthcare professional would be more strict in cases when a minor is asking for treatment that has great potential of harm. Then it would go to the court and the court most likely would say that wanting a treatment that harms is the evidence that the person does not have the capability to make an informed decision or something like that :)

And your analogy for it being poorly formed was poor.

Most analogies are imperfect, few things are perfectly isomorphic to other things. I stand by mine as relevant and useful.