How old should you have to be to...

[minionofmidas]

Buy birth control? 6 years old, as for any financial transaction.
Have sex? Onset of puberty
Get an abortion without parental involvement? Onset of puberty
Drink alcohol? No law (well, except for the ones on child abuse)
Buy alcohol? 14 or 16 for beer, two years later for the hard stuff
Smoke cigarettes? no law (well, except for the ones on child abuse)
Buy cigarettes? 14 or 16
Watch a pornographic film? no law
Star in a pornographic film? no major qualms with 18. No major qualms with lowering it a bit, either.
Drive? 18 (certainly older, rather than the same, than the drinking age!)
Be able to drop out of school? 16? Dunno
Rent your own apartment? Noone's going to rent to a minor anyways unless he's got guarantees, which will usually be parental ones, that the money will be coming anyways, so this is a complete nonissue
Own your own business? Well, "own" from birth obviously. Run... basically that'd be limited by the laws on child labor.
Go to a strip club? 16?
Fight a bull? 16? Dunno. 12?
Choose to go to a different place of worship than your parents? No limit.

[minionofmidas]

I didn't say my choices were realistic with the irresponsible youths that exist in society.

Don't take this the wrong way, but what's the point of having an opinion on something if it knowingly does not take reality into account?

Worse, a law that does? That's actually pretty frivolous, and *certainly* an example of lawmakers not taking responsibility for their own actions.

of course it happens all the time.

[minionofmidas]

Get an abortion without parental involvement? never

I know he meant that you shouldn't be able to get an abortion with parental involvement either... but I just had to imagine a country where 35-year old women needed their 75 year old dad's approval to have an abortion.