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NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’ (www.yahoo.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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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”.

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[–] 36 points 9 months ago (22 children)

Excuse me! Loads of Western European countries allow full incest (e.g. Belgium, France, Spain, etc.) so let's not pick on us Brits for allowing cousins to fuck.

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  • [–] 32 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I'm partially agreeing with you, but just because other countries say it's OK, it doesn't mean that we should.
    Haven't looked at the data, but still, 15% risk is high. From a social a health care perspective, this is horrible for those children too.

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  • [–] 19 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    not making illegal and support from the national health service are vastly different things. 15% is a disastrous rate for public health.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    But it's not a 15% risk. Unrelated couples have a 3% chance of having a child with a birth defect while cousins have a 5% chance of having a child with a birth defect.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Isn't the problem being that the probability increases with each subsequent generations? That's why having a child with a cousin should be discouraged, to prevent the accumulation of bad recessive genes.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    If you have one person with recessive genes and one person with dominant genes, then the baby will have the dominant gene. So if the grandparents were cousins both with recessive genes it wouldn't matter, as far as I know.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    The thing is, with subsequent incestual generations, the likelihood of the recessive gene manifesting increases a lot. So, the problem is not a single generation of incest, it's the normalisation of incest that might lead to multiple generations doing it.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    US yanks in red states too.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    "Brits are like US Southerners" is, arguably, a worse insult then calling them incestuous.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Fun fact: Most of the places it's legal in are blue. Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina are the only red states it's legal in, out of 17 total states. If we include states where it's conditionally legal (usually based on age/fertility) it's Utah out of 7 states.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    Define "full incest". Pretty sure siblings are not allowed

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Pretty sure they are. Incestuous relationships between consenting adults (with the age varying by location) are permitted, including in the Netherlands, France, Slovenia, and Spain. Why not check before making such a statement?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Not only wrong, but also childish about it. First, this topic is about marriage. They are not taking about letting them be in a relationship, but marriage.

    And marriage between siblings is not allowed in several countries you mentioned, which you would know if you checked instead of being "pretty sure".

    Not go be a wrong ass somewhere else.

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