Incest a 'fundamental right', German committee says

[Ideologue]

Two of the couple's children are disabled, and it is believed that incest carries a higher risk of resulting in children with genetic abnormalities.

But the Ethics Council dismissed that argument, on the basis that other genetically affected couples are not banned from having children.

This is the main point in a nutshell. In general, the state doesn't rule who can and can't procreate.

Which is a huge mistake.  That's exactly what the state should be doing.

100%.

[Berkut]

It's all bullshit, standard statism that assumes that there are people out there who, by the nature of the act (rather than the nature of who they are), lack the capability to make their own choices and hence the state must make those choices for them. And even that is largely bullshit, since it is really cover for people to simply legislate the private lives of other people and give themselves a fig leaf for doing so. This basically amounts to "incest is so gross that someone MUST be being coerced!".

The argument that incest is such a terrible thing that it must be banned for everyone, even when it is clear that the people involved are adults perfectly capable of making their own choices, is no different than arguing that sodomy should be illegal or interracial relationships, or any other societal defined "naughty/taboo" relationship where there is NOT a clearly defined breakdown of the relevant parties such that you can actually state that one party does in fact lack the ability to consent (such as pedophilia, for example).

If two adults want to have sex, and both adults are clearly capable of making that choice, then there is no defensible argument for the state involving itself in their decision.

Example #45,675 that most people do not actually give a shit about liberty when it comes down to it - except the Germans, apparently.

That is a little worrisome, actually.

[Malthus]

Let's just agree to disagree. I don't think your assessment is a correct one (do you have any psychological studies to support that or is this just your hunch?), and I find it reprehensible to criminally penalise consenting adults having sex because of a chance there might be something improper about their relationship's power balance. This is really no different from the justification used in the past (and still sometimes quoted) for banning gay sex because gay couples are inherently unhappy and similar bullshit.

I'm not saying that justification is necessarily correct (though I do think it is, that;s just my opinion); I'm merely saying this is the justification I have heard.

It does make a certain amount of sense, though. In any family, there is rarely going to be an egalitarian balance of power. The psychological dynamics within a family, it seems to me, are rarely going to allow a truly free choice of sexual behaviour without a concern being raised about improper pressures being brought to bear; clearly this is the case between parents and children (although again, I suppose one could find a case in which the kid was raised by others and didn't even know the person s/he was dating was a parent - just call him Oedipus  ). It seems to me also a major risk between siblings.

I would be a trifle concerned about making a gay analogy here - that strikes me as similar to those analogies made by homophobes, specifically to attack gay relations via the good old slippery slope ('if you allow gays to marry, what's to prevent men from marring their sisters, or animals'? ) 

[merithyn]

It's all bullshit, standard statism that assumes that there are people out there who, by the nature of the act (rather than the nature of who they are), lack the capability to make their own choices and hence the state must make those choices for them. And even that is largely bullshit, since it is really cover for people to simply legislate the private lives of other people and give themselves a fig leaf for doing so. This basically amounts to "incest is so gross that someone MUST be being coerced!".

The argument that incest is such a terrible thing that it must be banned for everyone, even when it is clear that the people involved are adults perfectly capable of making their own choices, is no different than arguing that sodomy should be illegal or interracial relationships, or any other societal defined "naughty/taboo" relationship where there is NOT a clearly defined breakdown of the relevant parties such that you can actually state that one party does in fact lack the ability to consent (such as pedophilia, for example).

If two adults want to have sex, and both adults are clearly capable of making that choice, then there is no defensible argument for the state involving itself in their decision.

Well said, Berkie.

[Martinus]

I don't think the gay sex analogy is a bad one.

I think the starting point for anyone who, generally, believes in personal freedom, should be that any sex between consenting mentally sane adults, should be permitted. I also think that in order to override this presumption, one should have really strong, unambiguous, clear evidence.

The argument brought by you against incest is essentially that people who want to have incestuous sex are either completely or specifically insane, as they are incapable of giving an informed consent. This argument has been in the past used against gay sex as well (by claiming that attraction to people of the same sex is a mental disease so, again, a person seeking such sex is not capable of giving an informed consent).

Like Berkut, I find such reasoning to be bullshit.

[Malthus]

It's all bullshit, standard statism that assumes that there are people out there who, by the nature of the act (rather than the nature of who they are), lack the capability to make their own choices and hence the state must make those choices for them. And even that is largely bullshit, since it is really cover for people to simply legislate the private lives of other people and give themselves a fig leaf for doing so. This basically amounts to "incest is so gross that someone MUST be being coerced!".

The argument that incest is such a terrible thing that it must be banned for everyone, even when it is clear that the people involved are adults perfectly capable of making their own choices, is no different than arguing that sodomy should be illegal or interracial relationships, or any other societal defined "naughty/taboo" relationship where there is NOT a clearly defined breakdown of the relevant parties such that you can actually state that one party does in fact lack the ability to consent (such as pedophilia, for example).

If two adults want to have sex, and both adults are clearly capable of making that choice, then there is no defensible argument for the state involving itself in their decision.

It's the nature of who they are, not the act.

The argument is that the choice is not truly free - that the ability to give free consent is not actually present.

Pedophilia laws suffer from the very same issues - the "age of consent" is essentially arbitrary (and in fact varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) and there will be people on the wrong side of it who clearly *do* have the ability to give fully informed and "capable" consent/choice. We keep Pedophilia laws on the books because in general the risk of harm is too great and so the (undoubted) impairment to liberty is "worth it".

[Malthus]

I don't think the gay sex analogy is a bad one.

I think the starting point for anyone who, generally, believes in personal freedom, should be that any sex between consenting mentally sane adults, should be permitted. I also think that in order to override this presumption, one should have really strong, unambiguous, clear evidence.

The argument brought by you against incest is essentially that people who want to have incestuous sex are either completely or specifically insane, as they are incapable of giving an informed consent. This argument has been in the past used against gay sex as well (by claiming that attraction to people of the same sex is a mental disease so, again, a person seeking such sex is not capable of giving an informed consent).

Like Berkut, I find such reasoning to be bullshit.

I don't think they are "insane" any more than I think a 15 year old is "insane".

Some years ago in Canada, a 15 year old could legally have sex. Then the age of consent was changed from 14 to 16.

[Viking]

In addition to deliberately placing a burden on society in the form of retarded and deformed children virtually no incestuous relationships can in any way be considered healthy, not to mention truly consensual. Family relationships are pre-fucked up by their nature and will by their nature always be coercive abusive in some sense, even if that is just in the mind of one of the parties.

I'd estimate that a much higher proportion of drivers are capable of operating their vehicles safely above the speed limit or consume pot in a non-detrimental manner than incestuous couplings can be normal and healthy.

This is why adoptive incest and homosexual incest are bad in all the same ways with the exception of the reproductive defects.

[Berkut]

If you take any two people anywhere, there is likely an imbalance of power between them of some kind or another. One will have more money, more charisma, be better looking, have more confidence, whatever.

So what? Why is there being an imbalance of power necessarily reason to suppose that the person on the short end of that measure suddenly doesn't have a right anymore to make their own choices? That just makes any theoretical imbalance that much worse - now we assume that people have even LESS power, because we take away their ability to exercise their own personal liberty by demanding that they now no longer even have the power to make choices themselves.

It is completely ridiculous. There are some power imbalances we recognize as being problematic and worthy of restriction to varying degrees because the exercise of that power can not only harm those involved, but it actually harms others as well. It isn't just about the power a boss has over a employee, it is also about how that destroys the work environment for others as well - there are other victims involved. But even at that we recognize that there are still situations where in fact it could be ok, and hence we demand that the particulars of each case be evaluated.

Not so in this case - we are going to ban it a priori, and the particulars do not matter. There are so many counter-examples that it is trivial to show that this is not about biology, or power, or anything other than people saying "Incest is yucky! It should be illegal because it is oh so very yucky!"

We tolerate all kinds of relationships between people who have varying levels of power over one another, and we routinely allow people to have children who will have radically increased chances of having a child with birth defects compared to the norm.

This is just standard societal immaturity slowly being weened away as humans slowly become more rational and less religious.

This is a true "conservative" issue.

[Martinus]

It's all bullshit, standard statism that assumes that there are people out there who, by the nature of the act (rather than the nature of who they are), lack the capability to make their own choices and hence the state must make those choices for them. And even that is largely bullshit, since it is really cover for people to simply legislate the private lives of other people and give themselves a fig leaf for doing so. This basically amounts to "incest is so gross that someone MUST be being coerced!".

The argument that incest is such a terrible thing that it must be banned for everyone, even when it is clear that the people involved are adults perfectly capable of making their own choices, is no different than arguing that sodomy should be illegal or interracial relationships, or any other societal defined "naughty/taboo" relationship where there is NOT a clearly defined breakdown of the relevant parties such that you can actually state that one party does in fact lack the ability to consent (such as pedophilia, for example).

If two adults want to have sex, and both adults are clearly capable of making that choice, then there is no defensible argument for the state involving itself in their decision.

It's the nature of who they are, not the act.

The argument is that the choice is not truly free - that the ability to give free consent is not actually present.

Pedophilia laws suffer from the very same issues - the "age of consent" is essentially arbitrary (and in fact varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) and there will be people on the wrong side of it who clearly *do* have the ability to give fully informed and "capable" consent/choice. We keep Pedophilia laws on the books because in general the risk of harm is too great and so the (undoubted) impairment to liberty is "worth it".

But adult people who are not allowed to engage in incest are not deemed incapable of giving consent/choice to having sex with people who are not their relatives. So the comparison to pedophilia is really misguided.

I mean, you could spin anti-sodomy laws or laws against interracial sex as "prohibition based on who you are and not the act as well" (after all, you are not allowed to have sex with a specific person because of who you are - in terms of gender or race - and not the act there). That does not make them comparable to pedophilia either.

[Tamas]

Banning siblings from having sex, on that I agree with Berkut. Banning them from having children? That seems much more valid.

[Malthus]

If you take any two people anywhere, there is likely an imbalance of power between them of some kind or another. One will have more money, more charisma, be better looking, have more confidence, whatever.

So what? Why is there being an imbalance of power necessarily reason to suppose that the person on the short end of that measure suddenly doesn't have a right anymore to make their own choices? That just makes any theoretical imbalance that much worse - now we assume that people have even LESS power, because we take away their ability to exercise their own personal liberty by demanding that they now no longer even have the power to make choices themselves.

It is completely ridiculous. There are some power imbalances we recognize as being problematic and worthy of restriction to varying degrees because the exercise of that power can not only harm those involved, but it actually harms others as well. It isn't just about the power a boss has over a employee, it is also about how that destroys the work environment for others as well - there are other victims involved. But even at that we recognize that there are still situations where in fact it could be ok, and hence we demand that the particulars of each case be evaluated.

Not so in this case - we are going to ban it a priori, and the particulars do not matter. There are so many counter-examples that it is trivial to show that this is not about biology, or power, or anything other than people saying "Incest is yucky! It should be illegal because it is oh so very yucky!"

We tolerate all kinds of relationships between people who have varying levels of power over one another, and we routinely allow people to have children who will have radically increased chances of having a child with birth defects compared to the norm.

This is just standard societal immaturity slowly being weened away as humans slowly become more rational and less religious.

This is a true "conservative" issue.

What part of this rant would not apply to the laws against pedophilia? Yet you claim to support those.

[derspiess]

Some of you guys are really, really gross 

[Berkut]

It's all bullshit, standard statism that assumes that there are people out there who, by the nature of the act (rather than the nature of who they are), lack the capability to make their own choices and hence the state must make those choices for them. And even that is largely bullshit, since it is really cover for people to simply legislate the private lives of other people and give themselves a fig leaf for doing so. This basically amounts to "incest is so gross that someone MUST be being coerced!".

The argument that incest is such a terrible thing that it must be banned for everyone, even when it is clear that the people involved are adults perfectly capable of making their own choices, is no different than arguing that sodomy should be illegal or interracial relationships, or any other societal defined "naughty/taboo" relationship where there is NOT a clearly defined breakdown of the relevant parties such that you can actually state that one party does in fact lack the ability to consent (such as pedophilia, for example).

If two adults want to have sex, and both adults are clearly capable of making that choice, then there is no defensible argument for the state involving itself in their decision.

It's the nature of who they are, not the act.

Except that you cannot define them as a group outside the act - it is only the act that makes the definition possible. So no, it is NOT the nature of who they are at all, since you cannot define the "victim" outside the act.

A child is a child whether someone tries to have sex with them or not.

A "victim" of incest has no meaning outside the act of incest. Hell, how do you even define the victim to begin with? Which is the part that should be going to jail? Both of them? How can they both be victims?

The argument is that the choice is not truly free - that the ability to give free consent is not actually present.

Yes, that is the argument. It is a ridiculous argument, but I understand that it is in fact the argument. The argument that two otherwise perfectly capable, rational, free adult human beings are not capable of better evaluating for themselves than that masses what they want. It is patently ridiculous.

Pedophilia laws suffer from the very same issues - the "age of consent" is essentially arbitrary (and in fact varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) and there will be people on the wrong side of it who clearly *do* have the ability to give fully informed and "capable" consent/choice. We keep Pedophilia laws on the books because in general the risk of harm is too great and so the (undoubted) impairment to liberty is "worth it".

There is a huge difference here though - we have all kinds of laws about the child/adult divide, and what children can and cannot do, even outside their sexual choices. "Child" is a clearly defined (even if the specific definition varies) group outside of any laws we make around them.

Literally every human being on the planet falls into the "potential incest victim/perpetrator". Hence it isn't an actual group, it is just a label we slap on people who do something we don't like.

[Martinus]

Banning siblings from having sex, on that I agree with Berkut. Banning them from having children? That seems much more valid.

As others have said, the risk of a child born from an incestuous relationship having genetical defects is much smaller than a risk of someone being born to a parent with a Down syndrom or to a parent with hemophilia having a birth defect.

Are you fine with banning the latter from having children? If so, how would you achieve such a ban?