German Committee Says Incest Is A Fundamental Right
Ew.
Gross.
I mean linking to Salon...
Not incest.
I don't know what to think about that...
Linking to Salon, however...shudder... That's just disgusting...
Here I'm torn between a liberalism/civil libertarianism that says that we have no business telling adults that they can't have sex with each other...and a conservatism that says that liberals think they are smarter than everyone else who has ever lived... I am a little uncomfortable defying the wisdom of the ages in such matters, I must admit...
Some of this question might hang on the probability of birth defects...but I kind of doubt it. We don't prohibit people from reproducing on such grounds.
Though morally, I suppose, reproduction becomes less permissible as the probability of birth defects goes up, and as their severity increases...
But we're talking about legality here not morality.
Also facts matter...facts that I don't know. I've read that it takes generations to get a very high probability of birth defects in most cases...but I don't know.
Gross.
I mean linking to Salon...
Not incest.
I don't know what to think about that...
Linking to Salon, however...shudder... That's just disgusting...
Here I'm torn between a liberalism/civil libertarianism that says that we have no business telling adults that they can't have sex with each other...and a conservatism that says that liberals think they are smarter than everyone else who has ever lived... I am a little uncomfortable defying the wisdom of the ages in such matters, I must admit...
Some of this question might hang on the probability of birth defects...but I kind of doubt it. We don't prohibit people from reproducing on such grounds.
Though morally, I suppose, reproduction becomes less permissible as the probability of birth defects goes up, and as their severity increases...
But we're talking about legality here not morality.
Also facts matter...facts that I don't know. I've read that it takes generations to get a very high probability of birth defects in most cases...but I don't know.
posted by Winston Smith at
1:00 PM
2 Comments:
Well, the usual screwed up family dynamic is not in play here, so I have some sympathy. But not all that much: the money quote is "two [of the four] children are disabled." While it's true that incest doesn't usually cause problems in the first generation, it has a much higher probability of doing so than is common in the general population.
-pete mack
Actually, the first generation can end up with some problems:
Why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? The answer is simple. The problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect. Take the results
Percent of children with severe birth defects.
of a study of Czechoslovakian children whose fathers were first degree relatives. Fewer than half of the children who were the product of incestuous unions were completely healthy. Forty-two percent of them were born with severe birth defects or suffered early death and another 11 percent were mildly mentally impaired. This study is particularly instructive as it included a unique control group — the offspring of the same mothers but whose fathers were not the mothers’ relatives. When the same women were impregnated by a non-relative, only 7 percent of their children were born with a birth defect (Figure 1).
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201210/the-problem-incest
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