Now I wonder, there are most certainly no such protections in place if an underage person goes into coma for long enough that their physical body is aged 18+. Wouldn’t your mind have experienced only very little development through that time, though?
The same laws that protect drunk, unconscious, disabled, senile, or otherwise incapacitated people would still apply. Here, the 18-year-old with a child’s mind would be deemed incompetent, and assigned a guardian.
Oof, yeah, that’s definitely something that will need to be looked at when cryotech starts being a thing.
Now I wonder, there are most certainly no such protections in place if an underage person goes into coma for long enough that their physical body is aged 18+. Wouldn’t your mind have experienced only very little development through that time, though?
The same laws that protect drunk, unconscious, disabled, senile, or otherwise incapacitated people would still apply. Here, the 18-year-old with a child’s mind would be deemed incompetent, and assigned a guardian.
what if they can prove competence?
Then we respect their personal agency.
There’s got to be something more concrete than that, should the guardian be the problem…
Laws are for generalities. Courts are for specificities. The situation you describe is resolved in the courts, not by legislation.
If the guardian is the problem, the courts assign a new guardian. That guardian can be another relative, or it could be a department of the state.