“If we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, when we do this to people who are a ripe, fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not in fact making abortion a much more desirable alternative, when marriage might be the right solution for some freedom-loving couple?” Edwards said.
I can see his point from a biological standpoint.
For most mammals, females start breeding when they’re sexually mature, and males breed when they’re able to compete with the adults, which is well after sexual maturity. Human evolution is no exception.
So historically, human females evolved to reproduce earlier than 18 years old.
But that purely biological argument willfully ignores the human construct of complex societies. It takes much longer for our species to reach societal maturity than even 18 years. 18 is still a child completely unable to support oneself or contribute to society as an equal. Are we are far longer living now than our species was even a short time ago. We don’t need to reproduce in our teens so that we can fully raise our offspring before we die in our 30s or 40s. And in fact, in reproducing young, it puts you at a severe societal disadvantage WRT competing.
So yeah, pretty blatant bad faith premise to support the conclusion he wants.
I’ve always thought it odd that people would ever reference nature when contemplating morality. Nature is evil. Beautiful, able to give rise to glorious wonders, and yet the most abjectly evil thing to exist. If your best argument is an appeal to nature, then you’re probably wrong.
I’m glad I see more people these days making arguments the way you are; granting the opponent’s entire premise and then showing it doesn’t matter. It’s an absolutely deviating rhetorical tactic, and one I’m fond of.