Your anecdote against science. That was in the opening post, that was the foundation stone behind this thread. Do you dispute the scientifical findings? You think you know more than them based on your own evidence? Let's see it.
Against science? Oh no, I'm quite for science. It's just that while science supports what you've said, it says quite a bit more that has been ignored -- i.e. that the risk of inbreeding is not just the risk of birth defects in first generation children of that union, but is as well the risk of increasing the rate of birth defects for the entire population.
Please see
Livingstone, Frank B. 1969 "Genetics, Ecology, and the Origins of Incest and Exogamy" in Current Anthropology 10:45-62
and
Thornhill, Nancy, ed. 1993 The Natural History of Inbreeding and Outbreeding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
for reference on my statements. Unfortunately I have been unable to find either online, and while I'm sure there are similar articles available online, I really couldn't be bothered to look for them.
Read Claus Larsen's post.
His post isn't a reason against having the laws, but more of a reason for adding more laws. Although, most of the dangers associated with late life child birth seem to be risks that the child will be born dead or the mother will die in the process -- which have little to no impact on the gene pool of a large population. And of those risks that don't involve death, how many of them are recessive genes that would be passed on to others in the population? I think Claus is comparing apples and oranges here. But I do agree that women over a certain age having children is a bit worrisome in more ways than just those that are biological. I, personally, decided long ago that I wouldn't have children after I turned 35 -- both for biological reasons and social reasons alike.
The RCC is a religion, not a culture. And I asked for evidence of this practice by the RCC, for which you provided none.
Alright, since I seem to have misunderstood what your response meant:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20020408.html
In England, incest was punishable only in ecclesiastical courts, which ostensibly applied the law of Leviticus prohibiting persons more closely related than fourth cousins to marry. This ban applied equally to relations by blood and by marriage, based on the canonical maxim that husband and wife were one, and therefore equally related to each other's kin.
I won't go quoting bible verses at you, since I'm not religious in the least and would rather not spout anything of the sort anywhere. The only purpose of even mentioning the RCC was to support the "social and cultural taboo" side of the argument.
According to ddt, the prohibition doesn't exist in the Netherlands. Does it exist in China, btw, as you claimed? You seem to have a weakness with fact and evidence, that's why I ask.
I apologize for my statement about the Netherlands -- I read a quote which said it was no longer prosecuted there and thought that meant that it was still technically illegal, just not enforced. I cannot find the law itself, as I don't speak the language.
Your attempt to ascribe emotions that I don't have, or a personal involvement that I never implied, do feel like an ad hominem attack. And they speak more about your character than about mine.
You know, I'm honestly confused here. I'm not used to people throwing around words like "discrimination" "prejudice" "irrational" and "unjust" without there being some sort of vested interest. In fact, one of the reasons I ended up posting in this thread was because of that confusion. Afterall, it's not as if you posted "hey, I read this article, can someone explain the history and reasoning involved in these laws" -- instead there was an initial outcry about how wrong it was.
Funny that. I'm in a US-based board, where most members are Americans... and you have an issue as to why I direct a question to Americans?
Hey, Kiribatians, come here, I want to ask you a question!!
It's not that the question is directed to Americans. It's the accusation that Americans are doing something wrong by not repealing these laws (which have been around quite a long time, by the way), without giving any solid reason other than "well other countries don't have laws against this."
I've avoided giving much in the way of personal opinion on the matter thus far, trying to stick to more objective (and evidence based) things to cite. But here you go:
America's history is one of trying to distance themselves (socially and politically) from Europe as much as possible. In Europe, royalty was often ripe with inbreeding in order to keep power in the family (and yes, there were a fair number of birth defects that occurred as a result, though most of them were not horrific or overt). This is something the government here wanted to avoid -- having a single family (or small group of families) that controlled the people (through wealth or political power) while holding themselves separate even for purposes of breeding. The US was (as unfortunate as it may be) also founded by extremely religious persons, who followed laws spelled out in the bible -- one of which decries incest. In addition to that, the US was originally made up of a lot of very small enclaves of settlers that were spread so far apart as to make it difficult for people to find spouses outside their own families, which led to much inbreeding and resultant birth defects which were visible but not life threatening. The stereotype of inbreeding being "backwards" and "something the poor do" grew out of this last bit, as those who had enough money either travelled to find a spouse or got a mail order bride. The combination of trying to be less like europe, combined with religion, combined with occurrences of these inbred enclaves, all contributed to the making of laws against marrying one's own first cousin. States that did not have those particular histories, or were not geographically near those who did, do not have those laws as there wasn't a problem they needed to address.
In more recent times (what with the advent of cheap and easy to obtain birth control), incestuous relationships maybe be viewed as less of a biological risk, but there are still biological concerns (i.e. raising the overall birth defect rate of a population) enough that justify, to me, keeping the law. Of course, if humans were as casual about their own lives as they were about those of livestock, maybe I wouldn't object. See, with livestock and other animal breeding, when a serious recessive trait occurs the animal is "culled from the herd" (killed), preventing it from propagating further. But humans would never kill a child that has been born with a birth defect, nor would they take measures to ensure it would never have children of it's own. We see it as immoral, and have made it illegal just as we have made assisted suicide illegal. Even the subject of aborting a fetus with a definite genetic abnormalities is extremely controversial -- heck, aborting a fetus for ANY reason is controversial still!
Then there's the whole subject of abuse. How many incestuous relationships came about due to coercion? How many relationships between cousins (or brothers and sisters) are based upon emotional and physical abuse? There aren't really any answers to this, in regards to adult relationships, that I've been able to find. I'm sure some of these relationships are perfectly healthy, but I need more than my own idle speculation. I know I've seen statistics on pre-adulthood incest and how much of that is based upon abuse. If the ratio continues to adult relationships of the same familial nature, well, then the ban on such relationships is more than justified in my eyes.
