Incest - Right Or Wrong?

[suedonim]

I was quite intrigued to read this story about two siblings in Germany who are seeking to overturn the laws on incest. Are their civil rights being breached or is the law there for a good reason?

Wow, this has gone off into such an interesting direction! I guess I have the genetic make up of an amoeba as I don't get MB's explanation beyond sentence five. It really psses me off that I don't understand science because I'm so interested in it and want* to be able to comprehend.

But anyway, I read \linkwww.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/03/08/do0805.xml\this further article} today which says their other siblings all had 'mental handicaps' and so on.

I agree that many people wouldn't know who their third cousins are. Until five years ago I didn't even know who my great grandparents were, let alone any cousins!

The other thing I've seen both here and in Indonesia is albinism. I don't know if that's because they are more noticeable against the usual skin colour in these countries or whether albinism is also a feature of familial marriages.

Bother. I am an amoeba brain! article

Albinism is not a common condition in the UK. In the US it is found in 1 in 17000 people. It is a recessive condition (actauly it is a group of conditions that all vary somewhat from each other). So to be an albino you need two copies of the affected gene

It is found in all racial groups.

If you are seeing it in larget numbers of this it is praobably due to people marrying within affected families,

Is the gene found at the same frequency in all races, MB? There's a girl with albinism at dd's school here. She has an unaffected sister. She'll be ok, I'm sure, as her parents are educated and wealthy but life would probably be much harder if she'd been born into an impoverished village where superstition still reigns.

I don't know. I thnk that is is fairly even. An american website says that it occurs in all racial groups.

However you could postulate that it would be less common in very sunny parts of the world, since the adverse effects of having no pigment in your skin would be greater when the sun is brighter.

bottom line is i'm not sure. tamum woul be your girl!

harpsi, you are banging your head against a brick wall here....

Good idea, MB. Tamum, I need to be educated so can you come back here??

incest is wrong wrong wrong..
consanguinous marriages, whilst not wrong in the same way, are just , well, a bit yuk. i think is wht they are....

Well yes, it is wrong, but no-one is arguing that it's right. What exactly is the point of the "yuk" posts?

What is a much more important issue is, here are these real actual people in this real actual situation. They have children - real children, who can't just be dismissed or wished away.

What is the best way forward for this couple? What is the best thing for the children? How do you weigh up the needs of society vs the needs of these individuals?

And as has been discussed on this thread - this phenomenon of siblings reared apart seems to be fairly well-recognised, so there will be other couples in the same position. What should they do, especially wrt having children?

Much more interesting than ranting about how disgusting it is IMO.

But isn't 'one off' sibling incest bound to be less problematic, genetically, than repeated cousin marriage within a small community?

I suppose I think that the responsible thing for this couple to do might've been a choice that their relationship should be childless. They do both sound very vulnerable.

Given that their relationship is now of several years standing AND he has now had a vasectomy, perhaps the authorities should butt out.

In terms of the genetics, if your immediated family is affeceted by a genetic condition, then the closer the relationship, the greater the liklyhood of the people sharing the same genetic problem.

However if you look at groups of people who practice repeated cousin marriages over many generation, the incidence of genetic problems does get higher than the 'background' level, since the same genetic material is being 'recycled' if you will.

For a recessive condition, like CF, if two carriers of the condition have children 1 will be geneticals free of the condition, ywo will be carriers and 1 will have the disease.

If these people all have 4 children each with genetically normal individuals there will be, in the nezt generation8 genetically normal people and 4 carriers. So if the cousins intermarry they have much higher odd of having children with CF. (the child with cystic fibrosis will probably not have children, boys with the condition are sterile and girls would probably not survive the pg)

The background carrier rate for CF is around 1 in 25 for the caucasian population (it is less common in other racial groups)

perhaps what they should have done then was to just keep quiet about it.
its amazing what you can get away with if you dont shout it out loud from the roof tops

I didn't know boys with CF are sterile. What's the reason for that?

Hello suedonim I agree with mb, as far as I know albinism is roughly as common in all racial groups. CF usually leaves males sterile because it affects the function of the cilia, little hairs that beat and that are needed for spermatogenesis, I think, but there are other theories. There are some males with CF who are fertile, I guess it depends on the precise mutation and a degree of chance.

That's so interesting, Tamum! You'll be pleased to hear that dd2's favourite subject is science, at the moment.

Oh hurrah I've just had a wee chat to her on the iCod thread!

Oh, that is so good to read!

I'd have thought that wit reduced lung function etc etc, a baby would have been too much for their system IYSWIM.

and of course initially few would have reached an age to have children.

Does anyone know if men who are sterile tested for the CF gene if they have sperm extracted to inplant for IVF?

Is CF picked up in the womb?

You can detect it via an amneo. Or you can have testing done following IVF. One cell is removed when the blastocyst reaches the 8 cell stage. One cell is removed and is tested to see if it carries the gene for CF, or if the bastocysts has two copies of the defective gene

The parents can then be given the information and decide if they want it to be inplanted.

This screening can also be offered to parents when both of them are known to be carriers of the CF gene.

It would be really, really unlikely to have CF mildly enough for it not have been picked up until adulthood and yet have it affect fertility. Heterozgotes don't have impaired fertility, of course.

Oh, and it's tested by heel prick here, but I don't know how widespread that is.

What's the state of play of gene therapy for CF, Tamum?

I remember a few years ago it was the Next Big Thing... then there seemed to be some technical problems (? with the plasmid I think) - has there been any progress?

Hope so, although I know these things take a lot of time to get from from lab to bedside.