Why should incest be illegal?

[Polaris]

 

[Greg44]

I can't wait to bring this debate up with my sister tomorrow!!

Should be very interesting... if you know what I mean, heh heh heh.

 

[tyr_13]

No, I don't know what you mean.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Leaving aside personal feelings of disgust, why is it sick?

How dysfunctional, insane, messed up, terrible and disgusting do you have to be to have sex with your own daughter? A person you created and have been a father to since day 1? Have changed diapers for, have played with, have fed since she was the size of your hands? What could ever make a man do that? Same exact thing with a woman having sex with her own son.

Siblings- the girl or boy you grew up with. Your mother's and father's child. Someone you share 100 percent of your DNA with.

If it's siblings very far apart in age, it's just plain child abuse by an adult.

And think about how it screws up the rest of the family. Absolutely destroys it. And the child that comes of it- how do they deal with their grandfather being their father, their mother being their sister, their grandmother being their father's wife, their uncle being their brother?

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

How dysfunctional, insane, messed up, terrible and disgusting do you have to be to have sex with your own daughter? A person you created and have been a father to since day 1? Have changed diapers for, have played with, have fed since she was the size of your hands? What could ever make a man do that? Same exact thing with a woman having sex with her own son.

Siblings- the girl or boy you grew up with. Your mother's and father's child. Someone you share 100 percent of your DNA with.

If it's siblings very far apart in age, it's just plain child abuse by an adult.

And think about how it screws up the rest of the family. Absolutely destroys it. And the child that comes of it- how do they deal with their grandfather being their father, their mother being their sister, their grandmother being their father's wife, their uncle being their brother?

So are you suggesting we criminally prosecute people who have sex within their own family?

 

[ravdin]

How dysfunctional, insane, messed up, terrible and disgusting do you have to be to have sex with your own daughter? A person you created and have been a father to since day 1? Have changed diapers for, have played with, have fed since she was the size of your hands? What could ever make a man do that? Same exact thing with a woman having sex with her own son.

Yes, that's pretty sick. A situation like that is unlikely to be between consenting adults.

Siblings- the girl or boy you grew up with. Your mother's and father's child. Someone you share 100 percent of your DNA with.

More like 50 percent, unless it's your identical twin. I'm certainly convinced it's a bad idea. But should we make it illegal? Most of us are happy to look outside the immediate family without intervention from the government.

If it's siblings very far apart in age, it's just plain child abuse by an adult.

Different story, and I support cracking down hard on child molesters.

And think about how it screws up the rest of the family. Absolutely destroys it. And the child that comes of it- how do they deal with their grandfather being their father, their mother being their sister, their grandmother being their father's wife, their uncle being their brother?

Probably. But last time I checked, it's not against the law to cause problems for your family.

 

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

I'm not aware of any laws that prevent siblings (or any relation) from living together as a married couple and having children.


There is a greater risk of genetic problems for the offspring of incestuous couples, but I'm not sure it's in society's best interest to tell people who can and cannot have children. At one time, were mentally handicapped people not forcibly sterilised in some societies?


I don't personally like the idea of closely-related people having children together. It seems like a very selfish choice, but I feel the same way about elderly people having children. It's putting your own desire for children ahead of the welfare of the theoretical offspring. However, I don't feel comfortable telling them they cannot reproduce. I also don't think it's in society's best interest to have financially troubled people having children, but, again, it's not my place to enforce this, and I don't think the government should either.

 

[gumboot]

I should state that there is absolutely nothing in the law that stops family members from having sex with other family members and nothing that stops them from being common-law man and wife.

What law? There certainly is in New Zealand.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

What law? There certainly is in New Zealand.

Well I hope you'll forgive me but I know nothing about the laws of New Zealand or if they do in fact have laws that forbid relatives from having consensual sex or becoming common-law man and wife. I only know that there isn't any in the United States. Or if there is it is otherwise poorly or difficult to enforce. This often seems to be the case with laws like this. Others seem to just be worded in a way that enforcement would be difficult or even impossible in some caess. Missiouri I believe specifically defines incest as occuring only if there is "penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ". Which I suppose would make homosexual incest technically legal in that state.

 

[KingMerv00]

Last time we had this topic, I said "Marriage/Incest is not childbirth."

I fully expect to be ignored again. Carry on.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Last time we had this topic, I said "Marriage/Incest is not childbirth."

I fully expect to be ignored again. Carry on.

Quoted to note that you haven't been fully ignored.

 

[Kaylee]

I'm not ignoring you -- I just strongly disagree with you.

I agree with all of the reasons given so far for making incest illegal.
I’ll also add this one:

I think there’s a lot of value in the traditional family relationships of father/daughter, mother/son, sister/brother and also: father/son, mother daughter, sister/sister and brother/brother.

I don’t think they could exist in the same way and provide the same kind of invaluable support if our society permitted incestuous relationships as normal.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

I'm not ignoring you -- I just strongly disagree with you.

I agree with all of the reasons given so far for making incest illegal.
I’ll also add this one:

I think there’s a lot of value in the traditional family relationships of father/daughter, mother/son, sister/brother and also: father/son, mother daughter, sister/sister and brother/brother.

I don’t think they could exist in the same way and provide the same kind of invaluable support if our society permitted incestuous relationships as normal.

And I suppose my side of the argument is responding by stating that forcing your own moral viewpoints on others is wrong, more than two consenting adults of the same family having sex even. All the reasons your side of the argument gives are spectacular...in so much as they are spectacular reasons for you not to engage in such behavior. However, if I were a legislator the reasons you have given me would not prompt me to deem the issue of incestuous marriage one deserving of state intervention.

Oh and your slippery slope argument involving the moral collapse of the traditional American family has been noted and filed away for such a day as that I agree the US government should act as the safeguard of "traditional" American values.

 

[plumjam]

Define incest and marriage. I say take away the religious aspects of marriage and call it a civil union. At that point any two people should be allowed to do it. My mother is very old. If she and her sister want to form a civil union for all the practical financial and legal reasons (incurring debt, making health decisions, etc), why shouldn't they be permitted?

You really can't see any problem with this? Why not, then, if you were available, go the whole hog and marry your mother yourself?
Having people, and particularly people who are already close family members, marrying each other merely for tax purposes or whatever, would undermine the whole meaning and value of marriage as it is currently understood, and has been since time immemorial.
To then say you're married to someone would no longer confer anything of a substantial moral or emotional character about that relationship. But it might just convince people that at least one of you is a rather clever accountant, or at least highly calculating.

 

[Kaylee]

@ Kthulhut Fhtagn

Well maybe someone else can help me construct an argument along valid skeptical lines.

I think it would be a challenge to do so either pro or con – I’m not aware of any society where incest is allowed as part of normal behavior. So how could a valid study of this proposed alternative behavior be performed? And obviously a double-blinded study could never be done in this area.

That being the case, I think we are basically left with arguments based on inductions, deductions and also opinions complete with bias and conjecture for both you and me.

We can't study everything in a lab. Are you going to say that every behaviour has to be proven its destructive or mentally unhealthy in perfect lab conditions before it can be made illegal? Even if that were possible, would you really want to go there?


ETA: Just to be clear, I"m talking about incest within the "nuclear family" -- not consanguineous relationships between cousins or uncles/neices or aunts/nephews.

 

[Hokulele]

You really can't see any problem with this? Why not, then, if you were available, go the whole hog and marry your mother yourself?
Having people, and particularly people who are already close family members, marrying each other merely for tax purposes or whatever, would undermine the whole meaning and value of marriage as it is currently understood, and has been since time immemorial.
To then say you're married to someone would no longer confer anything of a substantial moral or emotional character about that relationship. But it might just convince people that at least one of you is a rather clever accountant, or at least highly calculating.

Really? Other cultures have different opinions on what marriage means.

In many regions of Asia and Africa, consanguineous marriages currently account for approximately 20 to 50% of all unions, and preliminary observations indicate that migrants from these areas continue to contract marriages with close relatives when resident in North America and Western Europe. Consanguinity is associated with increased gross fertility, due at least in part to younger maternal age at first livebirth. Morbidity and mortality also may be elevated, resulting in comparable numbers of surviving offspring in consanguineous and nonconsanguineous families. With advances in medicine and public health, genetic disorders will account for an increased proportion of disease worldwide. Predictably, this burden will fall more heavily on countries and communities in which consanguinity is strongly favored, as the result of the expression of deleterious recessive genes. However, studies conducted in such populations indicate that the adverse effects associated with inbreeding are experienced by a minority of families.

Source.

The specific types of consanguineous marriage that are favoured can vary quite widely between and within different countries, with religious, ethnic, and local or tribal traditions playing a major role at local and national levels. The reasons most commonly given for the popularity of consanguineous marriage can be summarized as: a strong family tradition of consanguineous unions; the maintenance of family structure and property, and the strengthening of family ties; financial advantages relating to dowry or bridewealth payments; the ease of marital arrangements and a closer relationship between the wife and her in-laws; and greater marriage stability and durability (Bittles 1994; Hussain 1999). The degree of social compatibility, and the close involvement of the entire family in consanguineous unions, may explain both the greater stability that has been claimed for consanguineous unions, which have lower divorce rates, and enhanced female autonomy.

Source.

 

[The Don]

I think most people would be hard-pressed to distinguish consensual inter-generational (parent/child, uncle/aunt/niece/nephew) from non-consensual.

Prohibiting incest is a shorthand way of preventing abuse even if in the process "appropriate" incestual relationships are impeded.

 

[KingMerv00]

I think most people would be hard-pressed to distinguish consensual inter-generational (parent/child, uncle/aunt/niece/nephew) from non-consensual.

A non-consensual relationship is rape. Aren't you are supposed to use evidence to prove rape? I might be old fashioned though.

 

[KingMerv00]

Ethics is the study of how your actions impact the lives of others without consent. Law is the use of recognized force to enforce ethics.

Show me the harm of incest in general and I'll consider a law banning incest in general.

Evidence that does NOT qualify as evidence of harm:

1. Birth defects - A law prohibiting related people from having children is different from a law prohibiting incest.

2. Personal opinion about family relationships - Even IF a nuclear family is best, the case of incest is simply a matter of consenting to the harm that comes from losing a family relationship. If there is informed consent, the issue is not an ethical issue and therefore should not be a legal issue.

3. Religion - No explanation needed in this forum.

4. Diversification of the gene pool - It is extremely unlikely that allowing incest to be legal would have any impact on the gene pool as a whole and therefore the harm to society as a whole falls below noise levels.

 

[timhau]

It should.

Their children are more likely to inherit genetic disorders. They are also more likely to be teased and taunted, emotionally scarred by the idea they came of incest, have confused relationships with their parents and grandparents and have other social problems stemming from the fact they were born of siblings.

So, by those criteria, what other kinds of marriage should be forbidden? Marriages by people with genetically transmitted diseases? Developmentally handicapped people?