Germany May Legalize Incest

It seems that Pandora's box has been opened, and this is just a symptom of that.

What goes on in the bedroom of two or more consenting adults is the business of those participating and no one else. Surprised to see so much ignorance here on ATS.

originally posted by: Elton

I agree with their logic, but ewwww....

Sexual behaviour between concenting adults, is not the concern of criminal law.

Their logic is absolutely correct ... and wether you like it or not, it's more common than you think.

originally posted by: stardust22
What goes on in the bedroom of two or more consenting adults is the business of those participating and no one else. Surprised to see so much ignorance here on ATS.

I think the thing is that we equate our past experiences with our siblings, not nice, and the fact of a physical relationship that didn't involve smacking them upside the head is a little repellant. Others want to? Fill your boots. None of my business.

Just could not resits this

a reply to: douglas5

Rookie. Here's the original:

hmm incest...Ban all sex between humans!

"SoftBank to Sell Robot in U.S. Stores Within 12 Months will you buy one?"
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Prices coming down...
Just need to build them with sex organs...skin colour of your choice...nationalty...the mind boggles

think of the heartache saved, no more "your breath stinks"...or..."not tonight I have a headache"...no more sagging breasts...
Think of the space saved when you chuck out her shoes! 1 shoe = space taken by 20 batteries

Lets be honest here.

Anyone this decision impacts was already participating in said acts to begin with.

It still can remain taboo in a social setting. This would just remove legal implications. Ie, for the guy busted in a relationship with his sister.

Ewww for sure. But, consenting adults are consenting adults.

Exactly.You can bet the farm there Will be many who will jump at the chance to use this license, as an opportunity to extend their incestious sexual preferences/desires to the very young and defenceless.What the blue flying eff is the German government thinking? I always thought they were rather smart people,the Germans in general-seems I was mistaken,because smart people are not usually so short-sighted.But then,maybe I'm being unfair to the German population -it's not always the brightest bulbs that end up in positions of power,come to think of it.Anyway,a stupid decision,imo. .a reply to: aboutface

a reply to: James1982

Then there is the health aspect. Reproducing with close relatives can cause health issues. Well, so can homosexuality. It's a fact that diseases are easier to pass via anal sex than vaginal sex. You may say that gays can have other sex, and that straight people also have anal sex, and you would be correct. But just because you are involved sexually doesn't mean you have to reproduce, and plenty of non-related people who reproduce have genetically damaged offspring. So the health aspect can't be used with any honesty unless also used against homosexuality.

This, in all honesty, has to be the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. last time I checked homosexuals couldn't actually reproduce naturally. Forcing them to create their own children, scientifically and very intelligently, in my opinion. That includes, picking out a specific type of donor, one who benefits the HEALTH of the child and will ultimately garantee that the child does not come out with unpreventable problems.They rely on that other half to ensure them the creation of a healthy baby since they can not create one themselves.. After fertilization, it really is up to the woman carrying the child as to how it may come out.

Now, as far I know, the only health issue that people are concerned about that comes from two siblings having sex is the possibility that their offspring will be deformed or unhealthy in some way. Now, unless those two sibling are the same sex, there is no way to compare the health issues that come out of SEXUAL INTERCOURSE, which does not mean they are doing it in order to reproduce. More people are not having sex to reproduce anyways.

So, you can not compare the health issues of two siblings having sex and two people of the same gender having sex, because it IS NOT THE SAME UNLESS THEY ARE THE SAME SEX. Any "health issues" that arise from INTERCOURSE between siblings can also arise from intersperse between two non-sibling opposite sex people.

My Point: The health aspects from incest have nothing to do with the health aspects that come from homosexual inter course because homosexuals can not reproduce the same way same sex couples can. It's just impossible. Meaning, they can't have deformed babies due to anything other than genetics. Unless, of course, they are also siblings.

a reply to: jhn7537

People should be able to love whoever they want, but gross!!!

How about instead if legalizing it, just decriminalize it. If brother/sister mom/son dad/daughter have a child, that's a big big problem and there should be consequences to that.

Incest is extremely disgusting to me but people should have the right to love whoever they choose. As long as nobody's getting hurt....and that could very well happen if a brother and sister fall madly in love, then have a baby. The baby could end up having some serious genetic or physical disabilities.

originally posted by: jhn7537

originally posted by: SaturnFX
Two consenting adults should be able to do whatever the F they want to do....

There is no valid argument against it, and incest laws make no sense. Your morality is not mine and visa versa.

My personal opinions on the topic of incest itself..is irrelevant. eww, but whatever..I feel the same for gay man sex, and some of the more bizarre fetishes..my morality should not determine who can have sex

Well, if they would look to create offspring aren't there possible issues to stem from that... The sociobiology's explanation of incest avoidance is that inbreeding increases the probability that offspring will have 2 copies of deleterious recessive genes, there are always recessives and dominant genes but a deleterious recessive gene means that these results strongly suggest the existence of detrimental traits in haplo-diploid organisms.

You are moving towards baby banning based on risks.
You speak true, however, shouldn't measures also be made to disallow mentally retarded people to breed?
Similar risks.
I think information and perhaps a "swaying" not to breed would be best...but ultimately, its not a good thing to try and ban.

originally posted by: ColCurious
a reply to: jhn7537

originally posted by: jhn7537
Can anyone from Germany please lend some greater clarity to this topic?

I'm from Germany.

This topic is just one (dramatised) aspect of a wider development/debate about state interference into citizens personal lifes.

I would have expected that especially you freedom loving Americans were able to understand the point.

And what's it to you anyways?

Freedom yes, unless it involves yucky sex stuff, then americans typically are all about having a politician and a cop in your bedroom.
Keep in mind, many states still have sodomy laws..not that they are enforced, but they haven't taken it out..because a person would hate to say he thinks sodomy is ok (even between married couples).

a reply to: Klassified

Oh God. Sibling Inbreeding causes genetic disorders. Here:
en.wikipedia.org...
People should not do actions that lead to their children being born with disorders. Its that damn simple.

a reply to: tridentblue
Well duh! Did you not read my last two posts? Or some of the other posts in this thread?

You said to SaturnFX...

I don't agree, this one is different. There is a public health component here. When siblings reproduce, they radically amplify genetic flaws, and often create messed up offspring. This may be a case where Germany is overcompensating for shame about their history with eugenics, but it is okay for a government to forbid things on the basis of public health. Its no different than banning chemicals known to produce birth defects.

I said to you...

No. It isn't different. The government, and the self-serving, self righteous, folks need to mind their own business. The percentage of people dumb enough to reproduce with close family members is an extreme minority of those who practice incest. And considering incest is practiced world-wide, I would say the only people you really need to educate about genetic flaws is those who run this world, since reproductive incest has always been common among royalty and nobility.

You said to me...

No it is. The "self serving folks" would love to mind their own business, but they end up paying money when mentally/physically children are born that will be on the welfare their whole lives, at a grand cost of about a million taxpayer dollars each. I don't believe people have a "right" to make choices that lead to disabled children the rest of society must pay for. I do believe children have a right to be born healthy if there's any way to make it possible.

So as far as the sexual act, I don't care. As far as discouraging ANYTHING that leads to the birth of disabled/unhealthy children, whether its chemicals in the food or inbreeding, the government does have a right to step in.

I replied...

Mentally/Physically handicapped children are born all the time to people who are completely unrelated. In fact, exponentially more than those born from incest. Maybe we should make it illegal for any couple to have sex until they are genetically tested to see if their children will have birth defects, and sterilize them if that's the case. That will save the taxpayers many billions over the next decade.

And lastly, you replied...

Oh God. Sibling Inbreeding causes genetic disorders. Here:
en.wikipedia.org...
People should not do actions that lead to their children being born with disorders. Its that damn simple.

Now that we're caught up. We have no disagreement that incest CAN cause "genetic disorders". Nor do we disagree that reproduction between family members should be discouraged. Obviously, we also have no disagreement about physical relationships between relatives. You said...

So as far as the sexual act, I don't care.

The only place I can see we may have a disagreement is whether or not the government has the right to step in. You said...

As far as discouraging ANYTHING that leads to the birth of disabled/unhealthy children, whether its chemicals in the food or inbreeding, the government does have a right to step in.

So. If we say the government has the authority to step in regarding incestuous behavior, because it could lead to genetic disorders, then they also have the authority to regulate ALL reproduction within our borders, right? Because any couple, related or not, runs the risk of producing a child with deformities and/or genetic disorders. And it happens quite frequently between people who are unrelated in case you haven't noticed. You said...

No it is. The "self serving folks" would love to mind their own business, but they end up paying money when mentally/physically children are born that will be on the welfare their whole lives, at a grand cost of about a million taxpayer dollars each. I don't believe people have a "right" to make choices that lead to disabled children the rest of society must pay for. I do believe children have a right to be born healthy if there's any way to make it possible.

Since money out of pocket seems to be the big concern for you. I replied...

...Maybe we should make it illegal for any couple to have sex until they are genetically tested to see if their children will have birth defects, and sterilize them if that's the case. That will save the taxpayers many billions over the next decade.

Bottom line. If government can regulate who has sex, and what kind, they can also regulate who has children, what kind, and how many. Some would argue that's a good thing. I say the government has no place in the bedroom, or telling anyone whether they can have children. "It's that damn simple".

a reply to: Klassified

Klassified, the problem is that you're over-simplifying. The government has a right to regulate things that will increase the probability of of harm, such as pollutants in your drinking water, without demanding tests of every individual's drinking water. When something like inbreeding substantially increases the probability of birth defects, they can regulate it. When drinking the water in a certain area with certain poisons in the soil increases the probability of birth defects, they can make it illegal to bottle the water there for sale as drinking water, without testing every single home in America to see if they have fluke amounts of the contaminant, because that would be too invasive.

In general, for things to work, a government should have control in proportion to its benefits. If it offers free healthcare, it can make health destroying drugs illegal, because the addicts would drain the health care system. If it doesn't offer free healthcare, it really ins't much of their business if someone destroys their own health, because it doesn't have much effect on anyone else. The US Libertarian stance is to get rid of welfare AND restraints on liberties... In other words people face the results of their own actions, and it makes sense. But Germany is a massive welfare entitlement state with free healthcare and more. Look at this article about the German couple in question:
www.theguardian.com...

The siblings fell in love, and their son Eric was born in 2002, followed by Sarah, now 4, Nancy, 3, and Sofia, 1. Two of the children are known to have disabilities, although it is not known whether they are a result of inbreeding, or because they were born prematurely. All the children except Sofia have been taken into foster care. Mr Stübing has since been sterilised.

That's probably about 2.5 million dollars the taxpayers will have to pay to support their disabilities in the course of their lives. So in a state like that, it is totally the governments right to clamp down. For libertarianism to work, it has to cut welfare along with increasing liberties.

The other dimension of this you may not know about is the deep politics, the human genetic engineering component. The entire debate has centered on fixing these birth genetic defects, its widely regarded as the "Rubicon" of human genetics engineering, just getting rid of genetic problems in young babies. They have or are very close to having the tech to do it too, its just laws and ethics committees in the way. Any social movement that legitimizes sibling breeding in a place like Germany would also legitimize, as a means of economic necessity this genetic engineering for their children to prevent the defects, and then the Rubicon would be crossed, we would have entered the world of human genetic engineering. I don't know how I feel about that, but I'm telling you to let you know that there may be more to this than meets the eye...

Remember Fritz who kept his daughter as a sex slave and made her pregnant 6 times will he be rolled out as the poster boy and made prime minister like Mandela was


What would Moses have thought of all this

a reply to: tridentblue
As I have previously said. I am not for legitimizing reproduction between siblings, or any other close family relationships...

The other dimension of this you may not know about is the deep politics, the human genetic engineering component. The entire debate has centered on fixing these birth genetic defects, its widely regarded as the "Rubicon" of human genetics engineering, just getting rid of genetic problems in young babies. They have or are very close to having the tech to do it too, its just laws and ethics committees in the way. Any social movement that legitimizes sibling breeding in a place like Germany would also legitimize, as a means of economic necessity this genetic engineering for their children to prevent the defects, and then the Rubicon would be crossed, we would have entered the world of human genetic engineering. I don't know how I feel about that, but I'm telling you to let you know that there may be more to this than meets the eye...

...but I do see the ramifications of what you're talking about here. I am not necessarily against genetic engineering. However, we most certainly will be crossing a line we can't uncross, and honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about it either, now that it's staring us in the face.

originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: tridentblue
As I have previously said. I am not for legitimizing reproduction between siblings, or any other close family relationships...
...
...but I do see the ramifications of what you're talking about here. I am not necessarily against genetic engineering. However, we most certainly will be crossing a line we can't uncross, and honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about it either, now that it's staring us in the face.

Yeah, I hear you, you're not for sibling inbreeding... We're just about chatting policy here.

As far as the genetic engineering component, yeah its weird. I mean (setting the whole inbreeding thing aside) what you said is true: the same genetic defects can be present in any couple, and lead to babies with disabilities. Don't they have a right to a healthy baby also? Shouldn't the Rubicon line be drawn somewhere else?

But that's where its been drawn. There's a good debate from top bio-ethicists here:
www.intelligencesquaredus.org...
Debating around that Rubicon line: no one on the 'pro' side was for designer babies, just that healthy normal babies. So why do the 'anti' side all over the world insist on drawing the line there? I guess they think its a slippery slope, and once the line of genetically engineering babies is crossed even a little, its hard to put the genie back in the bottle, and I can kind of see that. But I'd be a hypocrite if I stood here telling you babies deserve to be born healthy, but its okay when the (non-related) couples with gene defects to have them. Does that make me for genetically engineered humans? I certainly don't advocate for government tests of every couple. It gets complicated...