Prime Minister refused to ban 1st cousin marriage

[happydappy2]

Even though there is clear evidence of serious birth defects to babies born from 1st cousin marriages. It is deeply worrying that the bride and groom will have the same Grand Parents.....this is unsafe for women in a patriarchal family system.

Who takes on the bulk of the work caring for the disabled child-the woman...

Why is the British gov't promoting incest?

https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1974371215629578344

I hope this is not true...but does anyone know any more about it?

@NeverDropYourMooncup - what about other cultural practices? Are they all acceptable? FGM -ok? Should we mind our own business about that? I have noticed three court cases recently where the rapist’s defence was “different cultural expectations” .

That some people who would ban first cousin marriage might also support other practices described by pp smacks of the type of forced teaming we see too often on this board.

Education and screening does seem to have success in the communities it has been made available. Eg certain Jewish communities in the UK and Amish/Mennonite communities in the USA.
It’s also allowed people from those communities to have a diagnosis for them or their children that they never previously would’ve got (due to the conditions being so rare or specific to those communities and not studied or looked for usually) and so has improved health outcomes for many.

I've seen this at work - a 'cousin' turning up at school who was the double of another pupil in the same year group. The 'cousin' and siblings plus mother had just arrived in the UK and were now living with the pupil's family. Said pupil was very unhappy.

Outlawing incest between siblings is Eugenics. As is testing for Downs Syndrome during pregnancy, which when positive usually leads to a termination. Providing IVF with Preimplant Genetic Testing to people who are carriers of genes for certain disabilities is clearly Eugenics; as we intentionally exclude some embryos from being implanted.

Should we now reverse our three policy positions here, because 'It's Eugenics!' therefore it must be evil.

It is not racist to want the women within Muslim and Traveller communities to have the exact same rights as all other British married women.

It is not racist to want these women to also be saved the misery and daily heartbreak of caring for a child, possibly many children, with severe disabilities.

And to save them from thinking - and most must occasionally wonder - is this my fault? If I had married a man of my choice, outside my close family, would I now be preparing all my children to be independent and have a rich, full adult life? Instead they are in continual pain and will have a short, miserable and very small life. Did I do this?

This is the true nature of what you are advocating for. Why?

Ask how many Labour politicians have cousin marriages in their own families.

Because your paternalistic attitudes and so very caring and helpful declarations that appoint you as defender of the human genetic line would lead to people like me never having existed in the first place and would prevent my daughter from being able to exercise any agency over whether she and her fiance decide to have children (not genetically related, but due to inheritable conditions).

Because of my ethnicity, because you think it would have 'saved' my mother from the misery and daily heartbreak of being lumbered with physically defective children and because you like the idea of having nice, pure, perfect children.

Why is it that you are advocating for something which time and time again has proven to be taken by people in power and used to harm and frankly, eradicate, others?

Are you the product of cousin marriage?

Do you think sibling marriage should be legalised?

As I said earlier, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't use reason to get themselves into.

Parents of trans children, specifically those who 'affirmed' them and supported the taking of cross sex hormones/puberty blockers and surgery, are similarly stuck in a logic-free position of their own making.

The choices are brutal. Either they got it horribly wrong, and people they love suffered terribly as a result; or they are correct, brave and noble!

So they stubbornly choose the later, as the former would mean a world of heartbreak and remorse. And scream 'transphobia!' or 'why do you hate them so?' when challenged with robust scientific evidence.

I fervently wish more people were willing to change their mind in response to powerful new evidence.

And if you are the product of a cousin marriage, it’s perfectly legitimate to say that cousin marriage should be illegal without wanting you to not exist.

Rape should never happen, but the logical conclusion of that is not that children born as a product of rape should be seen as less than.

Cousin marriage should be a crime. We should be better protecting women who are coerced into it. The first step is with legal protection.

Yes, this is such an odd argument.

It is also totally disrespectful to Muslims as it suggests that despite strong medical and social justification, which I would expect to be thoroughly communicated in a widespread public education programme, it assumes that they will all blatantly disrespect and flout the law of the land.

Why do posters arguing against a ban have such a low opinion of Muslims?

Totally agree here. Thanks!

I suggested that making cousin marriage illegal in the UK would drive it underground because some communities already flout UK law i.e. they have religious marriages which are not recognised by the state and have polygamous marriages which are not recognised by the state if they take place in the UK.
That's why I suggested other means first. By recognising the marriage ceremonies of other cultures (as we recognise Jewish marriage) we can enforce UK law as to marriage, i.e. serial monogamy. That done we can outlaw first cousin marriage - it would be impossible for a legal marriage to be performed. Marriages outside the UK by UK citizens would need to be registered in the UK and first cousin marriages would be illegal to register.
Long way round gets there. Also ends the problem of multiple wives married under religious law who have no legal marriage rights under UK law - attempting to register such a marriage in the UK would trigger a bigamy investigation.

Well, we've already had posters suggesting that Low IQ needs to be bred out, that humans should be treated the same as their dogs

Eugenics has a long and proud tradition of attracting dim people who want to look clever as well as genuinely dim people. Sadly it also attracts clever people who realise people want to hear things they agree with rather than facts and truth.

And I wish people would learn lessons from the past (and currently in many places) and realise that just because something sounds reasonable when couched in terms of 'helping' save people from themselves, the reality of that attitude is altogether more awful for entire populations.

I'm not clear which side you're on?

The side that wants Muslim and Traveller women to have the exact same marriage rights as all other British women? And for them to not suffer exhaustion and heartbreak from caring for the profoundly disabled children that will result from repeated marriages between close family members?

Or is it the other side? The one that believes arguing for legislative changes that will primarily impact and benefit some minority groups must be RACIST & EUGENICS.

I am truly sorry that you only want to hear things that you agree with rather than facts and truth.

I'm not clear which side you're on?

Are there "sides" ? In the universal reckoning of things ? Is it better to have a healthy few, or a larger population with varying degrees of compromised health ? Is there an objectively "best" answer ? How far is our moral and ethical take on this matter swayed by out cultural surroundings ? Ancient Greeks were known to leave babies to the gods on hillsides. Were they evil ? were they even wrong ?

Some may just drink wine and watch Loose Women for an intellectual challenge, but I like to stretch myself.

Whataboutery, the last resort of someone who knows their collective arguments are too weak to bear repeating.

Of course there are sides as to whether you - on balance - support new UK legislation banning cousin marriage and requiring all mainstream religious marriages to include a mandatory civil union. Or you don't.

If you were an MP, with a free vote on the proposed introduction of this new legislation, would it be Aye or No?

What arguments have I advanced ?

The whole concept of cousin marriage is racist, it all about marrying in to a group

New YouGov research shows that three quarters of Britons (77%) say first cousin marriage should not be legal, with only 9% thinking the law should remain as it is

Cousin marriage is more common among some South Asian minority communities in the UK, with a recent Born in Bradford study finding that almost half (46%) of mothers from the Pakistani community in three inner-city Bradford wards were married to a first or second cousin. This is borne out by the results, with a poll of ethnic minority Britons finding that 39% of British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis say cousin marriage should be legal – although 47% of this group still say the practice should be prohibited.

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52255-should-you-be-allowed-to-marry-your-cousin

Explain how it makes things “more awful for entire populations”, please

How ridiculous and Western to throw around "this is racist eugenics!!!"

It should be made illegal - even the Saudis have been trying to lessen it and educate citizens as genetic disease has risen hugely.

https://www.emirates247.com/news/region/saudi-in-drive-to-curb-endogamy-2015-01-15-1.576665

It's difficult as they will probably just get married in the eyes of Islam rather than it being publicly recorded. Maybe the imams should do pre marriage counselling on familial marriages?

Perhaps we need to make NIPT testing standard and free in certain areas/demographics, or whatever similar method other countries in the middle east use.

Ask the Uighur women. Or indigenous Greenlandic women. First Nations women, Peruvian women, Australian aboriginal women, Deaf women - or you could look at the rhetoric that my grandparents' families largely escaped from due to leaving the continent before it took an industrialised turn.

Saying 'but it's for the benefit of those poor women this time' doesn't change what historical and current events have shown to happen once notions of controlling the gene pool on a national level come into play.

What is your point exactly, @NeverDropYourMooncup ? That cousin marriage protects minorities? That having many disabled children is a just a by-product of this and therefore should be applauded in order to keep the line pure?