To be disturbed by wilfull ignorance around genetic inbreeding?

[M9009]

I've come from a country were cousin marriage and indeed marriage to any close relative if illegal.
I've recently started working in a dialysis unit and I'm so disturbed by how many parents are young children born of first cousin marriage. Usually from South Asian backgrounds.
Today I was speaking to one parents who has 9 children, all in need of kidney transplants. The eldest 2 have already had theirs. Parents are first degree cousins and each have various medical problems of their own.
Why, as a society, do we allow these marriages? It seems so cruel to the children who are born with medical and genetic problems.
Maybe I'm easily shocked, I don't know.

Patients* not parents

It is bonkers.

It’s not ignorance, people know about it but are afraid to speak up for fear of being called racist.
Im not sure what the answer is.

It is bonkers. I would go further and say second cousin marriage should be banned as well. That's a close relationship as well.

Who's saying unreasonable, please explain your view

Yanbu, it's a huge issue in the hospital my cousin (we aren't married ) works in. In a city with a strong South Asian population.

I'm in the US, so I don't super pay attention, but I did read an article within the past week or two that someone from the NHS was telling midwives that there are benefits to first cousin marriage and that the drawbacks are not so bad. I'll see if I can find the article.

Bradford? Or at least Northern England

It’s selfish and ridiculous and they’re as thick as mince.

Another thing that’s a complete waste of tax money/NHS resources which is preventable.

The only benefits to first cousin marriage are financial, not genetic

My friend works in genetic testing in a major city hospital. It's the biggest cause of birth defects they see.

My auntie married her first cousin, we’re not south Asian. Just so we don’t descend into racism or racist stereotypes.

FWIW I agree with you my aunt had multiple miscarriages and was told it was likely due to the cousin marriage. They’re not together anymore and he has kids with someone else.

Someone proposed a bill to make cousin marriage illegal.

Keir Starmer among others opposed this. Some felt a ban was not the way to go, that education about the dangers and genetic testing for problems before marrying would be better.

In the U.K. we both didn’t have or want to think about it much until recently: culturally, cousin marriage hasn’t been generally practiced; and ultimately those who did practice it more (nobility) would historically have been among those with the greatest weight against rejecting any legislation around it.

I think it’s also quite a complicated thing for any modern government to legislate against explicitly on the grounds of it resulting in disabilities and health problems. Saying “it isn’t right to marry and have children knowing there will be a significant chance of them being born disabled” opens the door to there also being an insinuation, or an accusation that it is also being suggested that perhaps other people should be prevented from marrying and having children - such as people with conditions with a known genetic cause or heritability.

I used to volunteer in a special needs school when doing my degree in a different field. I was shocked at how many severely disabled siblings were at that school- all from consanguineous marriage. One family had 6 children- all non verbal, most couldn't walk and no chance they'd ever live an independent life.

Well the NHS did publish guidance to clinicians extolling the benefits of first cousin marriage:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-first-cousin-marriage-risk-birth-defects-b1250227.html

I have never understood why marrying your cousin isn’t illegal in the UK. It’s long been seen as incest culturally, and now we have the science to prove how damaging it is.

I watched a documentary on, I think BBC Iplayer, investigating exactly this in the Luton and Bradford communities.

It was so very sad to see children suffering from something so preventable. Its been a while since I watched the documentary, but if memory serves a lot of the marriages were because they didn't want to dilute their genetics with outsiders and there was dowry issues etc.

I teach a girl who is the product of cousin marriage, she is 20 but profoundly intellectually challenged and has deformities in her extremities. Shes lovely, but you can see her future is going to be such a struggle for her.

I don’t get why, despite so much education on the topic, people are still ignorant. I think it’s not illegal here because there was a natural aversion from most people.

It was very common in England among white British families years ago - especially among the wealthy, to protect inheritances

For those like Keir Starmer saying education is the way to go rather than a ban, are they actually doing anything about it? As has already been posted the NHS had material saying their were benefits like social and family ties.

The odd cousin having kids together usually doesn’t cause issue but if your parents were first cousins and your cousin who you’re marrying is also born of cousins then it just becomes further and further inbreeding.

I used to live in an area where the local council were doing a lot of education on the dangerous of marrying relatives and genetic condition risks etc. They employed nurses who were speakers of the main community languages to run events in places of worship and community centres etc.
I imagine this sort of programme has been lost to all the cuts- but it seemed a very sensible way to reduce it happening since it would be almost impossible to police.

By years ago you actually mean over 100 years ago.
Things have moved on, at least they had.

I don’t think it was ever “very common”, especially not for first cousins. But yes it did happen.

So utterly gross.