Proposition 135 on this fall’s ballot would prohibit sex-change surgery on minors. Call it “gender-affirming surgery” if that makes the amputation sound more compassionate.

I’ll admit, I struggled with how to vote. Not because I think children should undergo these surgeries, but because I’m suspicious whenever government barges into a family’s decisions.

The question is whether stopping these surgeries is a legitimate function of government.

The sovereign individual

On emotional issues, like this one, it’s worth asking whether your vote grows out of principle or emotion. If you haven’t figured out your guiding principles, you’re just emoting with a ballot.

My overriding principle is every human being is sovereign unto himself — his own nation, his own kingdom. As sovereign, an adult has the right to speak, worship, own property, defend himself, associate with other sovereigns or tell them to get off his lawn.

He also owns his own body.

That includes the right to tattoo it, pierce it, poison it with gas-station sushi or surgically alter it. Other people may consider those choices foolish or grotesque, but it isn’t their body and not their business.

Government’s proper job, with very limited exceptions, is to protect individual liberty, not coerce people for their own good.

Which, naturally, brings us to seat belts (yeah, I know, but stay with me). I despise mandatory seat belt laws for adults. There is something inconsistent about screaming “my body, my choice” on one issue and then demanding other people’s bodies be strapped down against their will.

If an adult wishes to meet his windshield at 80 mph, that is between him and the laws of physics.

Further, as a supporter of Darwinism, I don’t want to keep stupid people in the gene pool longer than need be. Seat belt laws do that (note that the Kardashians were not a thing before seat belt laws. Coincidence?).

Kids are different

But I strongly support seat belt laws for children.

Infants cannot buckle themselves in.

Nor do children naturally yearn to be strapped into place. Why be strapped down when you can run around the car hitting your little sister, playing the “I’m not touching you” game while dodging your mother’s hand as she tries to slap you?

Parents should decide what risks their children may take. But no one should put children in danger, even if it’s the parents. Leaving a toddler in the trunk of a speeding car is not an unconventional parenting philosophy. It is child endangerment.

Our Declaration of Independence asserts government must protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, protect a child’s life until he’s old enough to have the liberty to pursue his happiness, which may include removing healthy body parts.

The case for yes

That brings us back to Proposition 135.

It does not prohibit puberty blockers or hormone treatments. It draws its line at the permanent removal of body tissue.

That distinction matters.

I run Independence Institute. We’ve spent 40 years fighting for parental rights in education. Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide how their children are taught.

Shouldn’t parents also have the final say over their children’s medical care? Almost always, yes.

Parents may choose a lousy school. They may feed a child an appalling diet. They may inflict violin lessons, youth soccer and matching family Christmas sweaters.

Those decisions can shape a child’s life, but they do not permanently remove healthy body parts.

A terrible education can be overcome through work and discipline. A disastrous haircut eventually grows out. Piercings close. Even tattoos can be removed.

Amputated tissue does not grow back.

Children are not miniature adults. We do not let them sign contracts, buy whiskey, smoke cigarettes or get a tattoo merely because they insist they have given the matter considerable thought.

We recognize that adolescence is temporary, judgment is developing and some decisions cannot be recalled once made.

An adult possesses bodily autonomy. A child possesses bodily integrity. That difference is the heart of Proposition 135.

Parents must have broad authority to raise their children according to their own values. Government is a miserable substitute for a mother or father.

But parents don’t have the right to place a child in needless physical danger, be it by not belting them in the car or cutting away organs because a young person may be struggling to understand his or her identity.

I’m voting yes on Proposition 135.

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver