on 26-09-2014 11:25 AM
GERMANY’S national ethics council wants to allow incest between siblings
German Ethics Council votes in favour of allowing incest between siblings
GERMANY’S national ethics council wants to allow incest between siblings, saying the risk of disability in children isn’t enough to warrant the law.
The Independent reports that the council made the recommendation after reviewing the case of Patrick Stuebing, a man who was adopted as a child and met his half-sister when he was 24 and she was 16.
The pair have four children together, however he was jailed for three years in 2008 and his sister, Susan Karolewski, was only allowed to keep one out of their four children.
Two of the children are disabled although it is unclear if that is a result of their parents being related.
Overnight, the German Ethics Council recommended that Section 173 of the German criminal code, which makes incest an offence under which offenders can be jailed for years, be repealed.
The chairman of the council, Christiane Woopen, was among the 14 members voting in favour of repealing the law, while nine people voted for the ban to continue and two abstained.
“The majority of the German Ethics Council is of the opinion that it is not appropriate for a criminal law to preserve a social taboo,” the council said. “In the case of consensual incest among adult siblings, neither the fear of negative consequences for the family, nor the possibility of the birth of children from such incestuous relationships can justify a criminal prohibition.
“The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination has more weight in such cases than the abstract protection of the family,” the council added. “Incest between siblings appears to be very rare in Western societies according to the available data but those affected describe how difficult their situation is in light of the threat of punishment.”
Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, a spokeswoman for Angela Merkel’s CDU party, said the abolition of the law against incest would send the wrong message.
“Abolishing criminal punishment against incestuous actions within a family would go completely against protecting the undisturbed development of children,” she told Deutsche Welle.
The Ethics Council’s recommendation only covered incest between siblings and members did not recommend decriminalising sex between parents and children.
on 27-09-2014 06:05 PM
@kilroy_is_here wrote:
I'm sorry yes you do , you do in all topics you ignor the over all point and chase down the smallest details in an attempt to derail the bigger picture you can denigh it all you like but you do
Are you addressing me?
You will need to provide some details about this, as I have no idea what you are talking about.
on 27-09-2014 06:08 PM
Incest between siblings may be inadvisable and even - to many - morally reprehensible, but it seems rather extreme to call it a crime.
Did any of you watch Inspector George Gently last night? The series is set in the early 1960s and one of the characters in last night's story had spent time in prison for attempting to commit suicide.
on 27-09-2014 06:15 PM
on 27-09-2014 07:30 PM
@katydidthat wrote:What I read, many years ago, is that incest between siblings was not only wrong because of potential inherited diseases, but because the children had grown up together. They had shared experiences that WERE related to childhood. (I'm sure we can all remember some of those). The concept of two siblings having a relationship skipped a developmental stage - that of growing up and taking a partner with whom they did not share a background.
The half siblings in the article in question did not grow up together. They met when he was 24 and she 16.
on 27-09-2014 07:32 PM
@kilroy_is_here wrote:
I'm sorry yes you do , you do in all topics you ignor the over all point and chase down the smallest details in an attempt to derail the bigger picture you can denigh it all you like but you do
Was it not you who said that if anyone has a problem with a comment it is their problem not the person who wrote the comment?
on 27-09-2014 11:36 PM
on 28-09-2014 06:28 AM
https://files.nyu.edu/air1/public/From%20Amoeba%20to%20Moral%20beings.htm
So..depending on what you believe
Adam + Eve = Cain, Abel and a group of sisters....did we all just get lucky and then wait for it after a time...somebody
said in about Moses' tiime that's it..... gene pool is big enough...... we got a great start...but no more banging your
sister???.............. and after that point close genetic bonds would cause defects just "BECAUSE"...........Lordy give me strength
Alternatively after developing from an Amoeba and crawling from the water and then cross breeding inter species to
formulate a cro magnon and after all that inter and cross breeding that was the recipe for the beginning.....some bright
spark said Whoo there Charlie that's enough of that incest............ lets ban it............ I have a bad felling about all thisa
inter family wooooooopy..... just "BECAUSE"
The nuts, bolts and plan of either scenario appear self defeating re the "incest' argument.
..... or am I missing something????
on 28-09-2014 07:48 AM
Gotta luv the free thinkers here...extremely enlightening It's Ok........ God said it was...if it's a neccessity... or a really
cold night??
Copy and paste below
http://www.blogos.org/gotquestions/cains-wife.html
All of these interpretations essentially “bend over backwards” when there is a much simpler explanation.
Cain’s wife was his sister, or possibly his niece.
After Cain, Abel, and Seth were born, Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4).
While the Bible does not specifically mention it, it would seem likely that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters
between Abel and Seth.
When Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4:8), both Cain and Abel were adults (or at least teenagers).
It would be very strange for Adam and Eve, surely the most perfectly fertile couple in the history of humanity, to go a
decade or more without having any children.
After Abel’s death, when Adam and Eve gave birth to Seth, Eve viewed Seth as a replacement for Abel, possibly
indicating that between Abel and Seth, Adam and Eve had only given birth to daughters.
Whatever the case, there is definitely room in the biblical creation account for Adam and Eve to have had many more
children by the time that Cain killed Abel.
But, isn’t that gross?!?! Doesn’t the Bible command against incest?
Yes, the Bible commands against various forms of incest in Leviticus 18:6-18.
However, those commands did not exist in the time of Adam and Eve and their descendants.
If God only created two human beings, Adam and Eve, their descendants would have had no other choice but to marry
and reproduce amongst themselves. Incest is gross because God has written His law on our hearts (Romans 2:14-15)
and because we know about the genetic risks to close intermarriage.
But, in the beginning, there was no genetic risk because the human genetic code had not yet been mutated/corrupted. Adam and Eve were perfect genetically, and their children would have had very few, if any, genetic problems as well.
So, who was Cain’s wife? Cain’s wife was very likely his biological sister.
The first generation would have had no choice but to intermarry with their siblings (or possibly with their
nieces/nephews).
The second generation of humanity could have intermarried with their siblings, aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews, or
cousins (which the Bible does not consider to be incest).
By the third generation, humanity would not need to intermarry so closely.
Whatever the case, there was no genetic risk to close intermarriage, as the human genetic code had not been
significantly corrupted by that time.
Cain’s wife being his sister sounds nasty, but if the Genesis creation account is interpreted literally, it was necessity.
on 28-09-2014 07:56 AM
I've never read the book, but I thought there was Cain and Abel only, and therefore the grandmother was the mother of the grandchildren.
Brothers and sisters have I none.........
on 28-09-2014 08:08 AM