This had another thread somewhere and I totally lost track of it. I guess I could search for it, but bleh.
So my thought on this is that it centers on the concept of self-ownership. Then I asked "Who owns themselves?" Everyone, right?
Well, what about children? What about mentally handicapped people?
I knew someone who worked at a home for the mentally handicapped (retarded). These people were put there by their families and they couldn't voluntarily leave. So it was like a jail for retarded people. Do they own themselves? Shouldn't they be allowed to live their lives in freedom?
Then I also brought up the case of non-human animals. Does any animal have the right to self-ownership?
The way you could look at this is to try to determine the line between guardianship and ownership. What's the difference? My answer would be that under guardianship, a person (or animal) would have some protections and recourse under the law, but under ownership, they would not.
In other words, you can't kill your son, but you can tell him what to do. You can't lock him in a home, unless he's retarded, then of course, that's ok.