Incest, Should it be legalised? Options

[Daria]

In Germany, there is currently a legal battle being undergone by a brother and sister who have had four children together- three of which have been put into foster care. The brother is 30 and the sister is 22 (I have just re-read the article and noticed that they "fell in love" when they first met in 2000. She would have only been 15.. hmm...) and only "met" because he was adopted by another family when he was a child.

Many people see it as a crime, but we've done nothing wrong...
We are like normal lovers. We want to have a family. Our whole family broke apart when we were younger, and after that happened, Susan and I were brought closer together

Incest is a criminal offence in Germany due to a law est. 1871. Patrick has already served a two-year sentence for committing incest and has "another jail term looming if paragraph 173 of the legal code is not overturned".

So should it be legalised? Should brothers and sisters be allowed to have children with one another? As the article points out, children of incestuous couples are far more likely to be disabled and in this family's case, their eldest child has epilepsy and learning difficulties ("but he was born two months premature"), and their other daughter has special needs.

People have said that our children are disabled, but that is wrong. They are not disabled

But is that really a good enough reason to prevent brothers and sisters having kids? People who have CF, Muscular Distrophy and other hereditary diseases still have children and there is no law preventing them from doing so. I know it sort of reduces the possibility of genetic variation, but seeing as humans have evolved to the point where they have all sorts of technical advances to help them survive to childbearing age, regardless of any diseases or disabilities they may have, should it even be an issue?

Thoughts, people.

[Moosh]

Personally, I think that if that's what people want to do, then they aren't hurting anyone else, good luck to them.

As for the children, if they know what they are doing, and are prepared to care for and raise their child, regardless of any disability or not, then I see no problem with it.

This does not, of course, provide for accidental pregnancies, but, to be honest, I wouldn't see it as any different to any other accidental pregnancy. The decisions that the prospective parents make with regards to keeping/aborting/putting up for adoption shouldn't be changed because it has a higher probability of disability, and even if they knew it was going to be disabled, unless they were actually incapable of caring for it, then they should do the same as they would any child.

So yeah, legalise it by all means.