ByteOnBikesJan 18

NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’

https://discuss.online/post/34083202

NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’ - Discuss Online

Midwives have been told about the benefits of “close relative marriage” in training documents that minimise the risks to couples’ children. The documents claim “85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children” and warn staff that “close relative marriage is often stigmatised in England”, adding claims that “the associated genetic risks have been exaggerated”.

Show threadAlmightyDoormanJan 18

ITT: Blatant ableism disguised as concerns.

Should you be allowed to have children if you are a known carrier of some bad but not inmediatly deadly risk gene like fragile x, chorea huntington, mucoviszidosis, diabetes 1 (let's ignore the worsening of fragile x and chorea huntingtion across generations for a moment)? Should you be allowed to have children if you have trisomie 21, or some other mental disability? If you say no i think you are ableist and can't comprehend that people with special needs are still people that can be happy and can have desires.
If you say yes why can't two cousins have a child? What if they have two forms of birth control and just want to fuck? What if they are the same sex? I my experience most people who are against two cousins having sex do not give a flying fuck about some theoretical chile but just think it's icky. Which is a fair feeling you are allowed to have but should not be basis for a law.

Show threadKristellJan 18
This. I haven’t seen an argument about incest that doesn’t immediately devolve into eugenics, or talking about power imbalances that aren’t present with adult cousins
Show threadAtlas_Jan 19

Children of first-cousin marriages have a 4–6% risk of autosomal recessive genetic disorders compared to the 3% of the children of totally unrelated parents.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage

Is it eugenics now to say people should avoid conceiving children that are likely to have birth defects?

Cousin marriage - Wikipedia

Show threadKristellJan 19

I don’t know, but do you also think it should be illegal to have a child if you’re over 40?

Do you also think that it should be illegal for people with heritable disabilities to have children?

Because your argument isn’t anti-cousin-marriage, it’s anti-birth-defects, and there are a whole lot more sources of them than incest, and ones that are way more common.

Also, yes, preventing people from having children who would have birth defects dates back to the original eugenics movement, it is literally a core belief of the eugenics movement.

How babies are affected by their mother’s age – Uppsala University

Show threadAtlas_Jan 19

24 US states ban cousin marriages. No states ban people over 40 from having children. You want to equate the two but there is a line between that that you can draw, as evidenced by half of the USA doing so.

I’ve expanded on my views elsewhere in thread.

Show threadKristell

25 US stated by my count, but also I let my ethics develop separately from the law. There’s been a lot of very questionable things in the law in the past, and as such it’s not exactly a trustable guide for ethics imo.

That’s not the point you presented here, though. The point you presented here was birth defects.

The point you brought up there I still object to, though. While there can be power dynamics between cousins, it’s fairly rare for those to continue into adulthood, and I have long taken the stance “I don’t believe the state should have a say in what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home.”

The line that’s been drawn is people allowing their disgust to inform policy at best. If it were based in anything else the policies would be different.

NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’ - Lemmy.World

Midwives have been told about the benefits of “close relative marriage” in training documents that minimise the risks to couples’ children. The documents claim “85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children” and warn staff that “close relative marriage is often stigmatised in England”, adding claims that “the associated genetic risks have been exaggerated”.

Jan 19 at 5:55amWeb
Show threadAtlas_Jan 19

“I don’t believe the state should have a say in what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home.”

So that’s why it’s a marriage ban?

Show threadKristellJan 19

Why did you bring birth defects up if marriage is the concern? You don’t get birth defects from a wedding.

Also in basically every state where it’s illegal to marry your cousin it’s illegal to have sex with them, too.