this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
98 points (98.0% liked)

Interesting Global News

2613 readers
833 users here now

What is global news?

Something that happened or was uncovered recently anywhere in the world. It doesn't have to have global implications. Just has to be informative in some way.


Post guidelines

Title formatPost title should mirror the news source title.
URL formatPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
[Opinion] prefixOpinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.


Rules

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. No social media postsAvoid all social media posts. Try searching for a source that has a written article or transcription on the subject.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.


Companion communities

Icon attribution | Banner attribution

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Proposal sails through, with one vocal opponent saying gay first cousins do not risk having a child with birth defects

Archived version: https://archive.ph/Ri2sc

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I love how the pic for the article is, presumably, a lesbian couple…

Yep, all those hot & steamy incestuous lesbians in Tennessee are about to riot.

[–] Breezy 4 points 7 months ago

Well the bill originally had an exception for all the supposed lesbien cousins. The governor or someone got to get all upset and strike part of the bill. Then go on talk about how bad the gays cousins were for wanting the exception.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I think I saw a documentary film about one of those couples.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Welcome to the 20th century

[–] shalafi 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You do know it's legal in many other states? Including loads of liberal states? Or were you just taking a dig on Tennessee?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Mostly the latter. I like shitting on stereotypes.

It is worth noting that I myself belong to a stereotype in this regard: I'm trash talking a state I've never been to, so feel free to reciprocate the shitting.

[–] ChihuahuaOfDoom 8 points 7 months ago

I just want to say that I love the gay first cousins argument. It makes sense in a fucked up way, I guess you could make a bill forcing first cousins to be sterilized if they want to marry and get the same end result.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I can't see how two consenting adults wanting to marry is an issue. Sure, having biological kids born out of incest should be criminalized as that comes under child abuse (going ahead with a pregnancy where the probability of the child having to suffer a birth defect is very high.).

Let's say I want to marry my first cousin. Both of us are 22 and 24. We are both adults. Why should society get to decide what we can and cannot do? If you say "love is love" and support this bill, you are a hypocrite.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So, accidental pregnancy between consenting adults that took precautions occurs. Is the state requiring a choice between abortion or jail? Just for the woman, or for both? What if the couple disagree on abortion? Still jail for both, or just one?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, interesting problem where I don't exactly have a good answer. But I would still support some form of criminalisation. If I fed my 3 year old cocaine while knowing it was cocaine, should I not be jailed for abuse? Is this situation not similar?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, because feeding a child cocaine isnillegal and reckless. Having protected sex is not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But deciding to continue with the pregnancy after your protected sex fails is reckless. You know your child is going to have a 50% probability of having severe genetic defects. If you still continue with the pregnancy, it is equivalent to feeding your child cocaine.

[–] Pateecakes 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In Tennessee abortion is illegal, so they would have no choice but to continue the pregnancy. So, not really an equal comparison, since presumably you have a choice not to feed your child cocaine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Ahh... Forgot that this story was in shithole Tennessee.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

having biological kids born out of incest should be criminalized as that comes under child abuse

It's the same as any other situation where a couple has known genetic traits that make birth defects much more likely. Why should it be criminalized if the parents are related, but not when the parents are unrelated, even though the outcome for the child is the same?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm not very confident in answering this, but this is my answer- Knowing that ur kid will have genetic defects is very easy if you know that your partner is your sibling, no? To know the other genetic traits, you would have to consciously conduct genetic tests n stuff. But not so much for incest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

But there are enough situations where it is easily known, even without genetic testing. For example, if a woman gets a child at a comparatively high age, like 40 or so, there is a significantly increased risk of birth defects, comparable to that for pregnancies between first cousins. I'm only talking about those kind of things. Why shouldn't that be criminalized then, too?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It shouldn't be. I was referring to direct family incest, where the risk of genetic disorders is 50%.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well in your original comment you were just talking about "incest" generally, and then going on to mention you marrying your first cousin as a hypothetical example. That made it seem like you would want a child coming out of that relationship to be criminalized, and that's what I was responding to. For direct siblings it might indeed be another matter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yes, in my original comment I did mean that. But one commentator gave the statistics of genetic disorders for kids born out of first cousins. After researching that a little, I changed my mind and wrote about it in a reply to that comment.

[–] pennomi 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I tend to agree. There’s only minor biological issues with marrying a cousin, around a 3% increase in birth defects if my quick google is correct. It’s only a cascading problem like people expect when it happens over and over in the same family tree… (or should I say family stick?)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Interesting.

Direct family incestuous offspring seems to have a 50% chance of having genetics disorders.

The stuff for first cousins is even more interesting!

In April 2002, the Journal of Genetic Counseling released a report which estimated the average risk of birth defects in a child born of first cousins at 1.1–2.0 percentage points above the average base risk for non-cousin couples of 3%, or about the same as that of any woman over age 40.[218] In terms of mortality, a 1994 study found a mean excess pre-reproductive mortality rate of 4.4%,[219] while another study published in 2009 suggests the rate may be closer to 3.5%.[2] Put differently, a single first-cousin marriage entails a similar increased risk of birth defects and mortality as a woman faces when she gives birth at age 41 rather than at 30.[220]

The above is from Wikipedia.

So basically, banning incestuous childbirth for first cousins is equivalent to banning women from having children when above 41 years old.

[–] Serinus 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What if the cousins are over 40?

[–] irreticent 2 points 7 months ago

They'll probably need some Viagra.

[–] The_v 4 points 7 months ago

It's a multigenerational issue with first cousin marriage. The coefficient of inbreeding increases as generations with repeated first cousin marriage.

Cultures where first cousin marriage is allowed have double the number of babies born with birth defects. They also are thought to have a higher rate of miscarriage.

Some insular small religious groups have an inbreeding coefficient so high that every marriage in the group is the equivalent to that of siblings. A small

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I can’t tell if this is serious or not

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

I am being dead serious. Memes aside, we need to question the logic behind every single thing that we believe in. That is exactly what I am attempting to do. I would encourage you to do the same :)

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

A couple cousin fuckers were mad about this, apparently.