Is it right to imprison people for incest?

[Landin55]

It seems a tad unfair to allow someone to love another, yet not allow them to have a child that they could possibly want pretty badly?

See thats the problem.......that child will have a high chance of a disorder...this is why it is wrong in the first place. SO yeah lets make it cut and dry, Want to fuck your sister? Have no kids, want to have a kid with your sister? Move to a country that doesn't care or be prepared for backlash. And still it is morally wrong because you give a better chance to mess the child up in the end with incest.

[Anjerith]

Whether they should go to jail or not, the chances of retardation in their children skyrockets because of the relationship - they owe it to the potential children they would have to discontinue their relationship or to eliminate their ability to conceive children if they are so selfish as to not care what sort of horrors they can inflict on a child.

Also, "Ask the children if they mind being retarded?" I am sorry but are you stupid? Do you know ANYTHING about mental illness in children? This statement literally made me want to report you and purposedly react to this idiotic statement in a way that would be guaranteed to get me banned from these forums.

Who do they harm? Great Jumping Jimminy Christmas are you really that dense? Their ruin their childrens future. Don't EVER assume that a retarded child is "Perfectly happy being retarded". That's like saying "Well that blind person was born with no eyes so they wouldn't really like to be able to see." or "Well those children were born conjoined, thats perfectly fine, they will live a normal and healthy life.".

OP, you are ignorant of the responsibility that we ALL have toward the children we bring into this world.

[anveena]

If they're of the age of consent why should I care who anyone goes an has sex with? Our jails are already filled with a bunch of criminals. Why toss someone who likes to screw his/her family members in with murderers/rapists. If you thought they were fucked up before they went in enjoy them when they get out.

[Deleted]

See thats the problem.......that child will have a high chance of a disorder...this is why it is wrong in the first place.

+

Well, according to that logic you also have to imprison mothers over 35, mothers/fathers making a child, although they know, they have congenital diseases and many other parents. Do you think that would be right?

[Deleted]

I believe, that although it is morally wrong imo, the notion of imprisoning someone for a victimless crime is governmental overreach...... so no I do not think it is right to imprison someone for incest.

Read the article. The victims are clerly their children and society as a whole.

They had 4 children and the 2 older ones both have severe mental and physical disabilities. Yet they kept going. The 3rd one had a heart transplant.

You have to remember in the US you don't have public health thus the third kid would likely have died and the older 2 would be the parents problem.
In Germany however the public has to pay the bills for such idiocy.

[Lylandra]

I'm from Germany and I find that law over the top. Morals should never be part of judgement and all other cases of brother-sister-relationship that does not include intercourse are allowed, as well as any kind of half brother-half sister, sister-sister, brother-brother or cousin relationship (earlier days it was quite normal for cousins to marry)
If all, one should look at the reasons why those two were a couple and whether that relationship is actually good for all family members or not (IIRC there were cases of domestic violence between the partners)

If you take the example of brother and sister who have never met because their parents divorced early and did not tell the children that they have any sibling, you would not have the normally developed sibling-relationship which prevents us from falling in love with brother or sister. Even Tolkien used that example as the cruel fate of two siblings whose memories were stolen by a dragon and who fell in love only to have the sister regain her memories and commit suicide after realizing with whom she was in love.

It's really only acceptable if they both look as good as the Lannister twins...

Really, I'm not one for telling people who they should be allowed to love or romance with, but I believe that people who participate in a relationship where the possibility of conceiving severely disabled offspring is a likely consequence of their 'romantic endeavours', those people should take the responsibility of avoiding causing any unnecessary suffering (for their potential children and themselves) because of their love.
It feels a little 'Big Brother' but perhaps such relationships could be more readily accepted if people in those kinds of couples registered their relationship and pledged to adopt any children they wish to have rather than try naturally conceive. It's not idealistic but the risks of medical complications is apparently really high.

Yeah, but in any case, when two humans reproduce, there's a given chance that the offspring will be handicapped in a certain way (trisomy, bleeding sickness, affinity to certain forms of cancer, autism, spastic symptomes...). There are cases in which that chance of two non-related people can exceed the chance of directly blood-related people and there are cases in which chances for disorders would be close to zero, even if you look at brother and sister. The question is where would you put the line? At which chance would you say it would be "responsible" to not have any children? 20%, 5%, 1% or even lower? And would you have the state pay the genetic tests for every citizen?

[Deleted]

OP, you are ignorant of the responsibility that we ALL have toward the children we bring into this world.

Well, although it is very unlikely that I will become a biological father...
If I would adopt a child, I would teach him/her something important: Tolerance
Many people do lack of that.

[Deleted]

+

Well, according to that logic you also have to imprison mothers over 35, mothers/fathers making a child, although they know, they have congenital diseases and many other parents. Do you think that would be right?

Except the chances in an incestual relationship are not only significantly higher, but the range of effects is more devastating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding#Results

Inbreeding may result in a far higher phenotypic expression of deleterious recessive genes within a population than would normally be expected.[1] As a result, first-generation inbred individuals are more likely to show physical and health defects, including:

Reduced fertility both in litter size and sperm viability
Increased genetic disorders
Fluctuating facial asymmetry
Lower birth rate
Higher infant mortality
Slower growth rate
Smaller adult size
Loss of immune system function

Not to mention that as shown here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding#Calculation direct incest has a very high chance of this happening (25% chance per child).

[Aurust]

Read the article. The victims are clerly their children and society as a whole.

They had 4 children and the 2 older ones both have severe mental and physical disabilities. Yet they kept going. The 3rd one had a heart transplant.

You have to remember in the US you don't have public health thus the third kid would likely have died and the older 2 would be the parents problem.
In Germany however the public has to pay the bills for such idiocy.

I would rather have society pay the bill, than have over reaching government. Are we to prevent people with hereditary disorders from breeding in general now because we KNOW that it increases the likely hood of passing down the disorder. Perhaps we should all be mandated by law to receive genetic screenings to make sure we dont have any random recessive alleles lurking around. Then in the name of public health, we can create a system where one can only breed from a pre sorted pool of approved individuals.

DONT TREAD ON ME!!!

[Tokru]

Were not cooking people in ovens......Preventing people from having sex because we KNOW they have a high chance to have a child with a disorder? Way different.

What's so different when they sterialized people because they had some form of a genetic disorder? It's not that they randomly took people from the street. The hereditary transmission of some diseases was well known decades before they even got to power.

Nobody is being punished for anything in the name of the "race". Just don't have kids with your sister, you view that as punishment?

Beeing punished (going to jail is a punishment, is it not?) for having sex with your sibling because possible offspring has a higher possibilty of beeing handicapped is only another rhetoric around the same subject the Nazis had.

Preventing (aka. punishing with sterialization) people with various genetical deseases from having handicapped children so that your "race" grows stronger
vs.
Punishing people for the possibility of having handicapped children so that those poor children don't have to suffer.

Different words for the same goal: We don't want to have handicapped children.

[blib]

No; you're forcing your opinion upon other people, and even going so far as to accusing people who advertise freedom of advertising the exact opposite (your term of 'pressure').
Sexual pressure isn't the issue at hand. The issue is judging the behaviour of consenting adults as immoral even in a situation where no harm is caused.
You also took my example of the experiment to mean that specific details (such as the banana, in this case) would imply, according to me, that people naturally crave inter-family romance (which is not at all what I meant; you turned it into that), which was why I stated that you clearly didn't get the gist of it.

You're arguing from the opinion that incest is deplorable and immoral. I can understand your opinion, and I personally would tend agree in that the very thought of romancing my relatives seems horrible to me. But the simple fact that I hold this opinion should not mean that my opinion should prevent other people from pursuing happiness in their personal lives, as long as their means of acquiring such happiness causes no harm to other people.

You, on the other hand, argue for a tyranny based on your personal opinion, completely neglecting the golden rule of 'And if it harm none, do as you will.' Not just neglecting it, but stating unfounded arguments, and even stating outright lies about other people's opinions, to force your personal opinion upon others, trying to make OTHER people look as if they want to do the oppressing. The second part of the post I am replying to proves this adequately.

We really should stop pretending like we dont give up rights and liberties for the good of civilization, we all do, all the time, and it is partly a necessity. I'm not against personal liberties but I do think a society needs to have standards.

Let's be real here, this is not a goverment trying to ruin anybodys life, they are just saying dont fuck your sister.That's the infringement on your freedom? You cant fuck your sister?
I'm failry sure you are atracted to other people besides your sister so why would we start a landmark case in viewing your parents and siblings as sexual objecs. If you remove the idea that they are you're relatives and that kind of thinking is wrong with regards to them you are left with just people which live together all the time. Would you have agreed with what Fritzel did if he had waited until his daughter was 16 and it she concented?

Do you also favoure cannibalizme if the person being eaten is allready dead? Victimless crime and all that.

[Stir]

+

Well, according to that logic you also have to imprison mothers over 35, mothers/fathers making a child, although they know, they have congenital diseases and many other parents. Do you think that would be right?

Mothers over 35 have a higher chance of producing a child with a disorder... But not necessarily a HIGH chance.
Over the age of 40, if the % increases by 1 per year, and the percentage originally is 2%, then you'll have a 2.02% at 41, 2.04% at 42 and so on. Not exactly the same as 50%, now is it?

For your other examples: Imprisonment may be a bit much, but I do think they should get fined, and the child should be taken into custody. Honestly, if you care so much more for your personal joy of having a child than you do for the child itself, you should not be having children in the first place.
Let's be real here, this is not a goverment trying to ruin anybodys life, they are just saying dont fuck your sister.That's the infringement on your freedom? You cant fuck your sister?
I'm failry sure you are atracted to other people besides your sister so why would we start a landmark case in viewing your parents and siblings as sexual objecs. If you remove the idea that they are you're relatives and that kind of thinking is wrong with regards to them you are left with just people which live together all the time. Would you have agreed with what Fritzel did if he had waited until his daughter was 16 and it she concented?

Do you also favoure cannibalizme if the person being eaten is allready dead? Victimless crime and all that.

Of course there need to be limits. I wasn't saying that. But fucking your brother... Well; if you really want that, and he wants it too, then why shouldn't you?
As for cannibalism: The way humans treat their deaths with ritual is important. Cannibalism CAN be a ritual, and in some cultures, it IS. In those cases, I do not oppose it too strongly (as there is a severe health risk involved I would not advocate for the ritual either).

I don't favour incest. Though again, you lie in order to make me look bad (in order to make your argument better). I am opposed to causing harm. And making any form of legitimate romance illegal based solely on personal bias is, in my personal morality, wrong. I might not agree with the practice, but at least I can take a step back, analyse my opinion and the situation, and conclude that, as long as no harm is caused, it is their liberty to pursue their romance.

[Deleted]

It's quite disgusting, if you ask me.

And no, i am not a bigot or religious in any way.

People just needs to follow what they're retarded genitals says, instead of following they're brains.

In this case, looks like both of them are screwed, also, no matter what, they known the risk theyre childrens will possibly have some mental/phisical disfunction.

This is just acting like idiots, for a very long long time.

[Deleted]

Read the article. The victims are clerly their children and society as a whole.

They had 4 children and the 2 older ones both have severe mental and physical disabilities. Yet they kept going. The 3rd one had a heart transplant.

You have to remember in the US you don't have public health thus the third kid would likely have died and the older 2 would be the parents problem.
In Germany however the public has to pay the bills for such idiocy.

Well, the children are born and I'm happy to pay into a Health Care Sytem, that recues the lifes of children.

[blib]

What's so different when they sterialized people because they had some form of a genetic disorder? It's not that they randomly took people from the street. The hereditary transmission of some diseases was well known decades before they even got to power.



Beeing punished (going to jail is a punishment, is it not?) for having sex with your sibling because possible offspring has a higher possibilty of beeing handicapped is only another rhetoric around the same subject the Nazis had.

Preventing (aka. punishing with sterialization) people with various genetical deseases from having handicapped children so that your "race" grows stronger
vs.
Punishing people for the possibility of having handicapped children so that those poor children don't have to suffer.

Different words for the same goal: Don't have handicapped children).

Hahahahaha this is priceless, you are actually brining nazisme into a discussion on wheather or not people should fuck theire sister:P

Nazies exterminated people for being different, we want people to not fuck theire sister and needlessly bring a suffering child into the world and you dont see the difference? For one thing I'm failry sure the nazies was mroe concerned with purity then the suffering of the child but hey why split hairs.

Wanting to prevent birth defects is nazisme, you heard it her first. Wanting a woman to not smoke or drink during her pregnancy is nazisme as well then I presume?

[Araxie]

are u mad bro o_O?
Incest is disgusting. Isn't it better to find normal boy/girl, not your sister or cousin?
Whats the prob?

FDR married his cousin, so... yeah. It's a big taboo in our society, that's true, BUT! Should we throw people in jail for it? Probably not, unless it's rape. How would you find out about it anyway? Police: Hey! Open up! We see you in there, stop it! That better not be your cousin!

[Deleted]

In terms of keeping our breeding pools healthy yes of course it is, whe don't quite live in a society of selective breeders but going down 3 tiers of incest has proven ill-effects, not 'Hills Have Eyes' scale of bad but certainly cause for concern.

[ryotte]

Difficult question. Obviously it would be gross to most of us. But the mechanism that causes us to not bang our siblings is our familiarity with them in our home at a young age, so if they grew up together they wouldn't have that repulsion, besides what was morally ingrained by society and, speaking objectively and not just about this particular issue, it's dangerous to punish people for not conforming to societal norms.

I do find it wrong to legislate morality, but if the kids actually had a significantly increased chance of significantly life-affecting abnormalities proven by several large scientific studies, then yeah, law against it. I don't know if those studies exist or if this is one of those things we've observed over time and come to believe. I understand the idea behind the genetics, but I don't know if one generation really has significant effects much of the time or if that's something we see in communities where people are relatively isolated and this happens over a few generations (some Amish communities, for example, display genetic mutations from lack of gene pool variation). But then who's to stop these kids' kids from happening to fall in love and getting married, and so on? The odds are low, sure, but in this particular instance if they KNOW mom & dad are brother and sister, it may not seem abnormal to them, they may even aspire to be like mom & dad...plus the whole getting taken away from their mother thing may lead to another generation of siblings who didn't have that "ew sibling" experience of growing up together. So honestly I don't have enough information to decide it should be illegal, no matter how disgusting society may find it.

In this case it's a bit reprehensible that a 25yo man fell in love with a 17yo girl, and she's probably not the only one with mental issues if he intentionally was going to meet his blood family and once he got there decided he wanted to have sex with this young girl who is in fact his sister. The "omg don't bang sister" instinct from childhood wasn't there, but he was going there in order to meet his blood relatives...he shouldn't have tried to hook up with any of them, especially one 8 years younger with mental disabilities.

I also feel sad that 3 kids got taken away. How could she be an unfit parent to 3 of the kids but okey-dokey for the other one? Either she's too bad of a parent to raise kids or she is okay to raise kids. Doesn't make sense to say "oh she'll do okay with this one, but not the others, she'd screw them up so bad there's no hope for parenting classes or anything, we just have to take them away." Also kids taken away from their parents rarely do better in foster care than with their own parents in the first place, unless said parents were actually abusive (and not slightly negligent or "off").

[Deleted]

Beeing punished (going to jail is a punishment, is it not?) for having sex with your sibling because possible offspring has a higher possibilty of beeing handicapped is only another rhetoric around the same subject the Nazis had.

Preventing (aka. punishing with sterialization) people with various genetical deseases from having handicapped children so that your "race" grows stronger
vs.
Punishing people for the possibility of having handicapped children so that those poor children don't have to suffer.

Different words for the same goal: We don't want to have handicapped children.

They aren't the same, this is apples and oranges.

Incest laws are not preventing people from reproducing, merely restricting the range in which people can reproduce. We allow handicap people to reproduce under the same laws as everyone else. No one is being prevented from it, merely having their options narrowed.

Nazis however solely prevented such a thing from happening, reducing their options to nil.

[Deleted]

Even though I find it utterly disgusting and just crazy, I still think that as long as both parties agreed and no one is harmed from it, it should be allowed. Imprisonment is just stupid.