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130

NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’ (www.yahoo.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by bytesonbike@discuss.online to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Midwives have been told about the benefits of “close relative marriage” in training documents that minimise the risks to couples’ children.

The documents claim “85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children” and warn staff that “close relative marriage is often stigmatised in England”, adding claims that “the associated genetic risks have been exaggerated”.

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[–] UncleArthur@lemmy.world 20 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Excuse me! Loads of Western European countries allow full incest (e.g. Belgium, France, Spain, etc.) so let's not pick on us Brits for allowing cousins to fuck.

[–] HisArmsOpen@crust.piefed.social 19 points 3 hours ago

I'm partially agreeing with you, but just because other countries say it's OK, it doesn't mean that we should.
Haven't looked at the data, but still, 15% risk is high. From a social a health care perspective, this is horrible for those children too.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

not making illegal and support from the national health service are vastly different things. 15% is a disastrous rate for public health.

[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

But it's not a 15% risk. Unrelated couples have a 3% chance of having a child with a birth defect while cousins have a 5% chance of having a child with a birth defect.

[–] stephen01king@piefed.zip 1 points 26 minutes ago

Isn't the problem being that the probability increases with each subsequent generations? That's why having a child with a cousin should be discouraged, to prevent the accumulation of bad recessive genes.

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 11 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

US yanks in red states too.

[–] klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 1 points 11 minutes ago

Fun fact: Most of the places it's legal in are blue. Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina are the only red states it's legal in, out of 17 total states. If we include states where it's conditionally legal (usually based on age/fertility) it's Utah out of 7 states.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Brits are like US Southerners" is, arguably, a worse insult then calling them incestuous.

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

For who? The Brits or the southerners? Lol

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 points 30 minutes ago

Whichever has more teeth