The bill would remove first cousins from the list of family members with whom it's illegal to have sexual relations in the state.
  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    10 months ago

    Weird, but who cares?

    Is it gross? To me yes. If they’re consenting adults should we stop them? No, and I don’t see why we should care.

    • corus_kt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      35·
      10 months ago

      Bill also reduces the penalty for diddling relatives from … 12 years old onwards…

      • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
        7·
        10 months ago

        (Can’t believe I’m saying this) then the target of the law should be reproduction with your first cousin, not intercourse with your first cousin.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        children shouldn’t be punished for their parent’s horrendous decisions - we’ve already got MTG & Boebert, haven’t we suffered enough?

    • RuBisCO@slrpnk.netEnglish
      6·
      10 months ago

      Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to demonstrate the effects of inbreeding depression, through numerous experiments on plants. Darwin’s wife, Emma, was his first cousin, and he was concerned about the impact of inbreeding on his ten children, three of whom died at age ten or younger; three others had childless long-term marriages.[14][15][16]

      Wikipedia

    • EndOfLine@lemm.eeEnglish
      53·
      10 months ago

      If this was happening where I lived, I would care about the potential impacts on the community from the possibility of an increase in genetic disorders of children born from such a union. Including increased stress on Healthcare, increased mortality rates during childbirth, increased citizens on government assistance, etc. Not saying these things would happen, but I would care enough to look into it.

      There’s also the impact on reputation resulting from one of the states leaders thinking this was an important enough issue to create a bill for, and then the impact on reputation if it gets enough votes to pass. Would the opinions surrounding morality and / or reproductive rights carry less weight? Could it even sway people away from the side taken by Kentucky just because it is the side Kentucky is on?

      • joel_feila@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        Well keep in mind the odds of a birth defects from first cousins is the same as a women over 40 have kids at all. But i don’t see applying that argument to this case.

        • EndOfLine@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Maybe I could have been more clear, but you seem to have inferred a different argument than what was intended.

          The original comment was asking “who cares”. My response was intended to say anybody that anybody in the jurisdiction of any bill / law should care enough to educate themselves on the potential impacts and not merely consider the surface level impacts on themselves as an individual.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        43·
        10 months ago

        Policing other people’s possible genetic disorders sounds a bit like eugenics. Should we also make it illegal for autistic people to breed?

        • EndOfLine@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          My intent was to answer your question “who cares” question. Now it I see that you care.

          People should care about laws that are and are not imposed on others, especially if they are in a position to voice support or opposition to those laws.

        • bbuez@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          10 months ago

          So we would also conclude abortion bans are eugenics then? I mean fine be free to fuck your cousin, if we agree on the government having no place in our bedrooms. But surely sex crimes should be prosecuted then… as this bill also wants to provide leniency to those offenses down to age 12…

  • menthol@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago

    It’s still incest, it’s just wouldn’t be a crime anymore. Which honestly isn’t a big deal. It’s not a crime in most states and marriage is legal in some.

    • rifugee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      10 months ago

      You say that, but it’s still really rare in most countries with only about 10% in the entire world. It seems that Arab countries are typically the exception and are responsible for most of that 10%. There is probably a lot of cultural nuance there that I’m missing, but the link below has a world map that really illustrates that it occurs mostly in the Middle East.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage

      • NoLifeGaming@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I did some searching and you’re right that it is practiced in high amounts in the middle east however you also find the same in North Africa and parts of Asia (specifically the Indian subcontinent, parts of India and southeast Asia). You also see its practiced in smaller amounts around the world. Including Europe and South America as well some countries to a lesser extent in North America. I’ll provide one source below but you can search for more.

        https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0906079106

        It would be interesting to see cultural attitudes towards it around the world though.