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It's well understood that humans reach sexual maturity before mental and physical. The fact that a social reaches sexual maturity does not imply its ability to survive independently
This isn't true for literally every other animal on the planet, even highly social creatures born helpless.
So please, go on, explain to me the mechanism for why it's magically different for humans (we'll leave out certain hormonal defects as those exist in every creature too).
Because I have a simpler explanation: the reason they're not reaching mental maturity is simply because you are unable or unwilling to provide an environment where they may mature properly. There are a few perfectly adequate reasons for this statement- if you're a parent or institution, it's easier to control a child than an adult, maybe you fear being an empty-nester so you keep them around far longer than they should, or maybe modern technology has bamboozled you into believing that younger human beings are less capable than they actually are.
But since most of those problems are those you have created for yourself, there's no reason to expect, and certainly not with force of law, that this is or should be universal.
Its fair to say that a human mother in the environment that humans evolved in is capable of taking care of a child once she reaches puberty.
But that doesn't mean that a human mother that has just reached puberty in our environment is capable of taking care of a child.
Is that a failure of our society and environment? Eh, I'd say its a tradeoff. We live in a much more complex environment, but that complexity generally allows for the support of more human lives. If we had only hunter gatherer tribes throughout the entire planet, would we be capable of supporting 1 billion people? It doesn't seem like it.
I think we're also just allowed to have higher standards of motherhood than existed at the pre-historic level. A 14 year old cannot drive a kid to the emergency room, but failing to take the kid to an emergency room is certainly neglect. We can maintain more lives and lose fewer to accidents.... at the cost of the expectation that you maintain more lives and save children from dying in accidents.
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It allows a larger number of human beings to exist.
It does not allow for the support of more full human lives.
Of course, the thing we're debating is whether it's proper for assumptions about your environment to prevent someone else's environment from being suitable for developing such a human being.
I assert that once the physical capacity for this exists, it is incompatible with the dignity of that human being to treat it as if the mental one does not, even if that was the case for most of them.
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