GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your age?

domingo, 24 de marzo de 2019

BioEdge: If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your age?

BioEdge: If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your age?

Bioedge

If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your age?

by Michael Cook | 24 Mar 2019 |

You might recall the case of Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old Dutch “positivity guru”, who hit upon a stunt which put him in headlines around the world. He applied to a court to slash 20 years off his age because he felt 49. It was obviously a back-handed response to the transgender agenda of requesting a legal change in sex.

Mr Ratelband lost his case. "Mr Ratelband is at liberty to feel 20 years younger than his real age and to act accordingly," a court ruled. "But amending his date of birth would cause 20 years of records to vanish from the register of births, deaths, marriages and registered partnerships. This would have a variety of undesirable legal and societal implications."

Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Norwegian bioethicist Joona Räsänen begs to differ. He contends that “at least on some occasions it is possible to give a moral justification for legal age change.” He bases his argument on the harm of discrimination. Being able to change one’s age would be a way to prevent, stop or reduce ageism.

Such an unconventional thesis immediately attracts objections. Age is a biological fact which cannot be changed. What about workplace safety? What if people became older rather than younger – wouldn’t that be psychologically dangerous? This is a slippery slope to height change. What if people abused this facility to claim old age pensions?

Räsänen rebuts all of these objections. Although a lot of work would be required to draft legislation specifying the exact circumstances for age changes, he believes that he has proved that it should sometimes be permitted:

I have argued that in some cases people should be allowed to change their legal age. Such cases would be when the person genuinely feels his felt age differs significantly from his chronological age and the person’s biological age is recognised to be significantly different from his chronological age and age change would prevent, reduce or stop ageism, the discrimination due to age, he would otherwise confront.

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

This is not an appropriate venue for a discussion of my age, but I think that most readers will sympathise with my occasional interest in turning the clock back a few years. What if the hoary adage, "you're only as old as you feel", could have the force of law?

Last year, a flamboyant positivity guru tested this theory in a Dutch court by applying to have his legal age changed from 69 to 49. To no one's surprise, he lost, but the reasoning for the adverse judgement was peculiar (as reported in the media, anyway). The court declared that too much government paperwork depends upon an agreed biological age. At a time when self-identification for gender is widely accepted, this line of reasoning is surprisingly weak.

Which brings me to an intriguing article in the Journal of Medical Ethics (see below) which supports the notion of self-defining age. The author bases it on the need to prevent discrimination on the basis of age, or ageism. I wonder how the courts will respond to this argument.