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.

[CrazyFooIAintGet...]

How would legalising incest make sexual abuse any more acceptable? Taking that argument one step further you could just ban sex altogether, so people have no excuses for rape?

I understand why people find it so disgusting and wrong in some cases, like between parents and children, but the people in the article didn't even know each other as kids, so their relationship is just like any other - I don't see whats wrong with it.

[Phyllis]

How would legalising incest make sexual abuse any more acceptable? Taking that argument one step further you could just ban sex altogether, so people have no excuses for rape?

I don't think you can really make that leap and say that banning incest because of abuse is like banning sex because of rape. Like elphaba mentioned, 75% of women who have been abused were abused by a family member...but I sincerely doubt that even close to that percentage of sexually active women have been raped. That's not "one" step further, it's more like 293483243 steps.

I have been unsure how I feel on this issue. My gut instinct is "it should be illegal," which honestly does make me wonder if I'm less openminded than I thought. If I am, so be it, I guess. None of the arguments here have managed to convince me that incest should be legal. What Snugglebum and Elphaba have said makes the most sense to me, really.