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.

I agree that this is a problem predominantly prevalent in the Pakistani Muslim community. No denying that other South Asian communities/religions have their own problems and issues, but cousin marriage is practised, normalised, romanticised (ever watch a Pakistani drama serial) and sanctioned amongst Pakistani Muslims. The socio-economic-cultural factors that contribute to cousin marriage amongst Pakistani Muslims need to be highlighted and identified; and education and reform needs to be targeted within that specific group. Their own leaders and spokespeople need to be the ones trying to effect change. First cousin marriage should be taboo and considered incestouos; it has a host of social and medical problems associated with it. This is not racism or prejudice, it’s just fact.

In Islam, culture is often pro-cousin marriage because Muhammad married a cousin, and so did Ali, who Shia Muslims especially revere.

But the Quran does not command it, it's not seen as some terrible sin if you don't.

Imo the prevalence of cousin marriage is strongly linked to the fact that some Muslim countries tend to be very tribal in rural areas especially. I was reading about the early history of Islam recently, and a lot of Muhammad's problems appear to have been with the tribal nature of his society, which was a contributor to the battles over succession after his death. Arguably if cousin marriage is in practice being primarily used to consolidate clans/tribes, which has enabled serious crime in cases like the grooming gangs, then this is directly opposed to the anti-tribal ethos Muhammad historically taught.

Sincere imams (rather than the huge numbers who kowtow to the tribal ethos) should speak out against this

Agree with all this. Not sure if 'incestuous' is necessarily a helpful tool though. The focus should be on the health risks rather than on sexual perversion.

Re religion & Irish Travellers, in this case they're directly contradicting Catholicism. Could churches help with interventions?

Yes, Sue Lloyd-Roberts' book The War On Women points out that abolishing the Primary Purpose rule enabled forced marriages where women were used to gain visas for Pakistani men, these men would then divorce then and bring home a traditional Pakistani wife (often an old girlfriend).This needs to be looked over. Women in these communities often opposed it but men were the ones listened to.

Hopefully these will phase out eventually. If the men are educated about the risks of cousin marriage, would they change?

I would say that the levels of cousin marriage dropping quite sharply over the last decade means that they do care.

Where do we start and end the restriction of NHS funds? Women over 35 who know the increased risks of pregnancy at that age but just don't care, are they included too? Do they have to do a quiz to see if they do 'know' before the funds are restricted or is just a blanket restriction?

Yes, I mean that would open a can of worms...would you restrict for people who have heritable disabilities who have kids? That would include a lot: autism & cerebal palsy are 2 among many which are veritable to some degree.

Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth both married their first and second cousins respectively
@TheDaysAreGettingLongerAgain

OneNewEagle said
its not something that would be banned in the uk due to the class structure and the way they keep the money in their family over the generations.

I was referring to aristocratic landowning families. I don’t think either Prince Albert or Prince Philip brought money to their wives .

there are plenty of Muslim countries where marrying a cousin is not seen as the norm and only something uneducated people would do

we do not need to be understanding of cultures that inflict cruelty and uphold a pretence of ignorance

it’s wrong the consequences are known how the prophet lived is not how people live today the only people who want to replicate how he lived his life in today are people who want to keep control and isolate women and children

Yes - to be clear, I wasn't saying that religion is an excuse or that we should be understanding.

My point was that cousin marriage is being used to perpetuate a tribal ethos which ironically the historical Muhammad opposed. The religious basis is weak, and reformist religious leaders should point this out.

Such a strain on the NHS, it should be banned in this country for that reason alone. More importantly it’s so unethical to have children who might suffer because you’ve inbred!

It is to us
it won’t be to those who support and uphold these cultural norms as Imams interpret Islam differently not just between Sunni and Shia

culture weaves around religion and religion weaves around culture

we can bring in laws here but we tip toe around possibly offending anyone and their culture as we want to be seen to be accepting

we do not need to be accepting at all when children suffer

I work in Scotland and this is having a major impact on health and social care within the NHS trust I work in. I also work with a woman whose two brothers are married to their cousins. Between them, they have seven children, all with significant health issues and frequent hospital admissions. She has openly said this is because they married their cousins.

So much hysteria. Cousin marriage is fine provided neither of the couple are themselves inbred at all.

@sashh Google Charles II of Spain and please understand the irony.

Maybe the marriages amongst white British 1st cousins is rare, but they definitely practise having sex. Maybe that’s what should be illegal.

So it’s fine to marry your cousin but wouldn’t be fine for your children to then marry their own cousin?

Maybe just ban it at the source then?

Im sure i read something along the lines if... with the first first cousin marriage it is rarely 'harmful however its when this keeps happening that the genetic issues begin to build. So where there are marriages happening within families repeatedly, the gene pool is not expanding which causes greater chance of something going wrong genetically.

In Pakistani and Traveller Communities, cousin marriage happens again and again with every successive generation. It isn't a family tree that spreads ever wider instead all the branches just twist back inwards. It's more of a topiary trunk.

So the gene pool narrows and concentrates. Cousins become genetically closer to brothers and sisters. Hence the much higher levels of severe disabilities in these communities.

You're right, if there were virtually no cousin marriages in your ancestry for the last five generations, you'll probably be safe. But in the British Pakistani and Traveller communities it's likely all of these five previous generations will be cousin marriages too. It's creepy, incestuous and very damaging for the health of the resulting children.

Hence the 'hysteria' (rather sexist choice of wording) over all those British children born to live a shortened, brutal and very tiny life in continual pain and needing 24/7 care. And the cost to the NHS and Council Services will be enormous. Money we don't have.

Just because their community wanted to keep the family money close, to strengthen ties/control over the marrying couple, and because it's their tradition for cousins to marry.

That's why it needs banning. To benefit those communities specifically. Because the education initiatives aren't working, and the heartbreak and suffering continues.

The problem comes when all the cousins aren’t capable or don’t live long enough to marry and produce the next generation. What happens to family money when there is no family

I think you're probs right. There's this odd British sentiment that the act of criticising somebody of another ethnicity is worse than almost anything that person can do themselves.

It's why the Rotherham scandal endured for so long and why lefties/the woke are so silent on things like the 1200 German women sexually assaulted on one NYE in Egypt style mob assaults and the Channel 4 survey that found over half of UK Muslims in favour of making homosexuality a criminal offence.

It's clearly not fine then, is it?

It 100 % isnt and its heartbreaking to see

So let’s be clear about where your logic leads.

Do we deny NHS funding to children who are born to disabled parents knowing they will/can pass on their disability?
To children born to autistic parents?
To children of parents with known genetic conditions like BRCA2?

All of those involve known risks. All involve people making choices. Yet we don’t punish the children.

The NHS treats on need, not on whether you approve of someone’s parents or culture. Once you start deciding which children “deserve” care, you have left public health and entered collective punishment.

Funny how this logic only ever seems to be applied to brown people and Travellers.

So I remember a thread a while ago following the idea that the UK were going to issue ID cards. Everyone was very much against the idea. I live in a country where we do have ID cards and a single Identification number which follows you from birth to death. This ID number is used on your birth certificate, you passports, your marriage certificate and your parents ID numbers are linked to yours as their child. Basically there is a system which connects the population… I’m not sure even with this system how anyone would police the family connection to prohibit these marriages.

For all those saying to make it illegal, how would this work? Would there be a check at the registry office prior to marriage? Would it just be someone’s good faith that they are not first cousins on a piece of paper before signing off on a marriage? What would the penalty be for people who do get married to their first cousins anyway?