The religious argument is just a smoke screen so the pro-choice side can hide behind the first amendment. The crux of the argument is at this: at what point do you have a right to life? The fact that a person who assaults a pregnant woman and causes her to miscarry can be charged with murder indicates that its before birth.
Personally, I think the answer is actually: Marriage is the asserted obligation that both parents will seek to raise children to adulthood regardless of the circumstances of the conception of the child. Pre-marital sex must be banned as to prevent the deaths of children, so that children must only be conceived by parties prepared to deliver them alive and well into adulthood.
Of course, that collapses the idea that we can't ban pre-marital sex.
The religious argument is just a smoke screen so the pro-choice side can hide behind the first amendment. The crux of the argument is at this: at what point do you have a right to life? The fact that a person who assaults a pregnant woman and causes her to miscarry can be charged with murder indicates that its before birth.
Personally, I think the answer is actually: Marriage is the asserted obligation that both parents will seek to raise children to adulthood regardless of the circumstances of the conception of the child. Pre-marital sex must be banned as to prevent the deaths of children, so that children must only be conceived by parties prepared to deliver them alive and well into adulthood.
Of course, that collapses the idea that we can't ban pre-marital sex.