Do We Own Our Bodies: The Legality of Body Ownership

In common times, property ownership has become a hard pressed issue as people try and claim what is rightfully theirs. As medical practices have expanded, the problem of ownership has also extended to the human body and thus questions of ownership arise. It is a common belief that each individual owns their own body but this will be shown to be untrue throughout this paper. Not only that but this paper will also show potential benefits of following through with the body belonging to the common biomass rather than each individual. Court cases such as Moore vs Reagents of the University of California, Greenberg vs Miami Children’s Hospital, Washington University vs Catalona, and Diamond vs Chakrabarty along with cases such as Body Worlds and Henrietta Lacks will be used to show how people do not own their own bodies in the eyes of the law through definitions brought about by The Lockean Theory of Intellectual Property. Examples shown by Emson will then be used to depict how this ruling would be beneficial to the common good