The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise
"Equal Protections, Natural Conceptions"
The Compromise consists of three laws, to be enacted at the same time.
- The first law would prohibit attempting to create people by any means other than joining a man's unmodified sperm with a woman's unmodified egg. It would not effect any methods currently used to conceive, such as IVF and sperm donation, as those still join unmodified sperm and egg. But it would prohibit tinkering with the genes and creating people who are not the genetic offspring of a mother and father, and it would rule out attempting to procreate with someone of the same sex, or procreating as the sex you have less potential to procreate as.
- The second law would replace DOMA with a law that recognized state Civil Unions as marriages for federal purposes, but only if the Civil Unions were defined by the state as "marriage minus conception rights." In other words, they would have all the rights and protections and obligations of marriage, but would explicitly lack the essential right of all marriages to attempt to procreate together. These Civil Unions would not be "marriage in all but name" and could not be turned into marriage by a court decision, but they would provide the protections that gay couples need as much as straight couples. They would not weaken or threaten marriage because they would remind the public of the unique meaning of marriage, strengthening marriage.
- The third law would affirm that all marriages protect the right of the couple to procreate together using their own genes, and prevent any state from stripping that right from any marriage, or declaring married any couple that does not have that right. This is the part that rules out same-sex marriage in any state.
I've had hundreds of discussions about this plan all over the internet. Just google "Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise".
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