Incest a ‘fundamental right’, German committee says

Incest a ‘fundamental right’, German committee says

Wow, Germany. Wow.

(Link): Incest a ‘fundamental right’, German committee says 

• Anti-incest laws in Germany could be scrapped after a government-backed group said relationships between brothers and sisters should be legal

• by Justin Huggler, Berlin

• 4:09PM BST 24 Sep 2014
•  Laws banning incest between brothers and sisters in Germany could be scrapped after a government ethics committee said the they were an unacceptable intrusion into the right to sexual self-determination.

• “Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the German Ethics Council said in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.”

• Their intervention follows a notorious case in which a brother and sister living as partners in Saxony had four children together. The couple had been raised separately and only met when the brother, identified only as Patrick S, was an adult, and his sister Susan K was 16.

  …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.

  The Council said it based its recommendation on extensive research, in which it found many incestuous couples are forced to live in secret.

  In one case, it found a woman was being blackmailed by her father and ex-husband, who threatened to depive her of access to her children unless she ended a new relationship with her half-brother.