Runaway laws for teens should be abolished

Hi again,Thanks for your detailed rebuttal, I am really enjoying this debate so far!Rebuttal #1: 13 year olds working?You said:"I believe a 13 year old should be able to get a job and make a good salary."This is a rather curious belief. What would 13 year olds be employed as being an independent adolescent being treated as an adult who still must go to school? How would a 13 year old live off of 20 hours of week of minimum wage, with no credit, no parental support and still succeed in schooling? These beliefs I believe demonstrate an ignorance about the issue of runaway teenagers and it's relation to youth homelessness. 1. Teenagers that run away are not walking into a healthy transition, but rather are likely making an emotional decision to leave a disfunctional situation.[1]2. 75% of homeless or runaway youth drop out of school.[2]3. 20,000 youths are forced into prostitution through human trafficing networks every year.[3]4. There is somewhere between 1.3 and 1.7 children currently homeless in America today.[4]Self declared emancipation by teenagers, to obtain full independence from their parents would drastically increase these sad statistics and cause great harm to future generations. The measures states take to bring runaway teens back to their homes or a foster home (in the case of abuse) is to protect them from the dangers of living off of the streets, which make them more likely to starve, be abused (physically or sexually), receive no education, and die before 20.Rebuttal #2: Teens suing?Many of my objections to the last argument also apply to this. Namely, the question of money. In a civil suit, one has to pay their attorney hourly for their representation in court. Where would a 13 year old obtain thousands of dollars to sue, in addition to supporting themselves as individual adults and succeed in schooling? This isn't Richie Rich, where a young kid stumbles on a blank check and all of the sudden has access to whatever he wants.[5] Homeless teens make up 40% of the total population of homeless people in America,[3] even if jobs were opened up to 13 year olds they still would have no skills, limited time and minimal development of higher cognitive functions.The expectation that lawyers would do pro bono work for teenage civil suits is also ludicrious. Lawyers like any profession need to make money in order to be successful, and civil suits initiated by minors who would not have the ability to pay is not the kind of opportunity that would engender interest.Rebuttal #3: Is Adolescense a real thing?Once again my opponent appealed to the idea that it was common prior to the industrial revolution for 13 year olds to marry. This is of course a continued fallacious appeal to tradition, just because something has been done in the past does not make it right or beneficial. Here are just a few major issues of child marraige.1. Teenagers under the age of 15 who become pregnant are 5 times more likely to die during child birth.2. Mortality rates are 20% in teenagers under 20 who bear children.3. Children who marry early are often pulled out school early and thus denied an education are likely to be illiterate.4. Most children who marry before 18 are females, thus this is demonstrated to be a remnant of a sexist society.5. Children married in their early teens are much more likely to be the victim of domestic or sexual abuse.Source:[6]Your source also does not take into account the incredible reorganization of our brains that takes place."The first full series of scans of the developing adolescent brain—a National Institutes of Health (NIH) project that studied over a hundred young people as they grew up during the 1990s—showed that our brains undergo a massive reorganization between our 12th and 25th years. The brain doesn't actually grow very much during this period. It has already reached 90 percent of its full size by the time a person is six, and a thickening skull accounts for most head growth afterward. But as we move through adolescence, the brain undergoes extensive remodeling, resembling a network and wiring upgrade."[7]While the rates of develpment may differ from teenager to teenager, and may indeed be influenced by their experiences. It cannot be denied that there is a vasts difference between a brain like mine (at 25 years of age) and the brain of a 13 year old.Also, these radical measures do not take into account that there are in fact emancipation laws that exist in most states. For instance, I live in Washington State and they have a law that a teenager at 16 years of age can submit a petition to become emancipated from his parents and thus an independent adult according to the law.[8] Which there would be by a judicial officer to assess the teen's eligibility for emancipation. This law restricts this ability to teens older than 15, and causes the process to be a bit more difficult to dissuade emancipation only in the instances where individual independence is a realistic possibility. Children running away for family issues, etc. should not be treated as adults, but rather should receive better care from perhaps a foster home.Kind Regards,TrueScotsman[1] http://www.nationalhomeless.org...[2] http://www.ncsl.org...[3] http://www.covenanthouse.org...[4] http://www.dosomething.org...;[5] http://en.wikipedia.org...(film) [6] http://www.pbs.org...[7] http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com...;[8] http://apps.leg.wa.gov...;