If I (non-consensually) spank an adult, that's abuse. If I spank an animal, that's also abuse. But if I spank a child, that's somehow magically not abuse?
Most of Europe has been getting along fine without physically hitting their children for discipline. Parents should not be teaching their children that pain compliance is an acceptable method for getting what they want.
Your analogy makes no sense. If I ground my child, preventing them from leaving the house, that's a reasonable punishment. If I prevent an adult from leaving my house, that's kidnapping. There are some things you can do to your child that you cannot do to another adult. And that's normal and good.
That's fair, and I don't disagree that parents and guardians should have rights over their children to punish them for discipline. That said, you certainly still can't spank your pets...
Look, I agree that the state should have a lot of leeway in letting parents decide what is best for their children. But in and of itself, spanking is the direct use of physical harm (the fact people even split straws on whether or not it causes "lasting damage" is really the wrong question to be asking) to a child to get your way, whether you feel it's justified or not. And there is this reflexive defense of it because it's just this completely weirdly ritualized punishment where people have completely distanced themselves from the idea that while yes, they are inflicting physical pain upon their children, they've made themselves comfortable with the idea because it's a traditional parenting method.
When one of my sons, at age 4 or 5 picked up a brick and hit my other son in the head with it "just to see what would happen" he got a spanking.
He got to see what would happen.
And you know what? He never did anything like that again.
I don't think that spanking should be a go-to punishment, but in some cases, especially those involving high danger, a small child needs to have a fundamental fear of breaking certain rules.
I'd rather have to give a child a spanking for trying to run out into the road than to have a dead child and some sort of moral superiority.
Reasonable and clearly defined punishments that include spanking as the "nuclear option" are part of a parent's toolkit.
Child rearing is hard. I've been doing it for 24 years straight now with four kids.
Kids are different and don't respond the same to punishments. What works for one may not work for another.
Barring cases of abuse, I believe it's wrong to armchair quarterback parents raising their kids in the best way they know how.