Unintended Consequences

So many times we hear of laws or regulations having unintended consequences, and though unintended, in hindsight many of them seem totally predictable. I was reminded of this when I heard politicians in Washington suggest that the voting age be lowered to sixteen.

The whole argument as to whether sixteen-year-olds have the maturity and judgment to vote is a good debate for elsewhere. After all, the eighteen-year-olds who are allowed, even encouraged, to vote cannot legally buy alcohol. They may not buy lottery tickets in a few states. And here the USA Today advocates, “Raise the federal minimum legal age for tobacco, e-cigarette purchases to 21.” Furthermore, since 2009 “you must be 21 years of age to get a credit card in your own name, unless you have a cosigner or can show proof of steady income.” All these laws and proposals speak to the maturity and judgment of 18 year-olds.

Note: The voting age was lowered to 18 during the Vietnam War on the somewhat skewed reasoning that if you are old enough to go to war, you are old enough to vote – as if following orders and fighting in combat require the same skills as voting. But what of lowering it again to sixteen?

Implied with lowering the voting age is also lowering the age of majority, that is, when you are considered an adult. One of the problems comes back to that question of the draft. Along comes the USA Today again with a suggestion to “Include women in Selective Service registration.” Would that mean boys and girls must register when they reach their 16^th birthday? (Of course, they would not be considered boys and girls anymore, but men and women.)

Another issue is the protection sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds enjoy in courts and criminal proceedings. Debates sometimes break out over whether certain juvenile criminals should be tried as adults. Should they be eligible for the death penalty in states that allow it? Police don’t release names, and the press doesn't publish the names of minors involved in crimes. With such a new law it could be argued that they are adults and must forfeit all this special consideration.

Yet another issue would be activities and purchases other than alcohol and nicotine products where normally an adult must sign for the youth. This might include medical procedures and vaccinations, high school field trips, youth sports, legal contracts and a host of other transactions. How would all these parental permission issues be affected?

If some of these examples seem extreme, consider the college orientation briefing I attended with one of my sons years ago. While they were explaining how parents could afford all the fees and tuition to send their children to college, they added that to see how the students were doing the parent had to deal directly with them. Since they were adults, some privacy regulations prohibited the school from sharing report cards with parents (those same parents whom they assumed would be responsible for paying). Imagine having such privacy restraints applied to a report card for a junior in high school!

I’m sure there are other considerations that I have missed, but predicting, or at least anticipating, unintended consequences is a good exercise in critical thinking.