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Subscribe to RSSThe European Court of Human Rights said Thursday that Germany's ban on incest doesn't violate the fundamental right to protection of family life, BBC reported.
In the case brought before the court in Strasbourg, brother and sister Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski of Germany argued they had a right to family life. The two had four children together, BBC reported, and two are characterized as disabled.
According to German law, sexual intercourse between relatives is punishable with i mprisonment for up to three years or a fine, Die Welt Online reported. Stuebing, 35, was handed several prison sentences and has already spent more than three years in prison, the German website said. His relationship with his sister has fallen to pieces as a result, something for which his lawyer believes German courts should be held responsible.
According to Die Welt, Karolewski wasn't convicted because she suffers from a severe personality disorder.
Stuebing and Karolewski didn't know each other as children. Stuebing had been adopted, and it wasn't until he was 24 that he tracked down his relatives. When their mother passed away, the siblings grew closer and fell in love, Welt Online reported.
Germany's law stems from the increased likelihood of disabled children resulting from incestuous relationships. Stuebing's attorney Endrik Wilhelm called the ruling "a big disappointment," Welt Online said, adding that the judge had not sufficiently explored the depth of the case.
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I feel like the main issue here is the children. The reason incest is wrong (aside from the fact that it gives everyone the willies) is that it is downright dangerous to inbreed. Their kids are lucky if they're not severely disabled physically, and there has got to be a psychological toll.
Well said... I empathize with this particular case, but I admit eeeewwww! :(
GNARLY!
They're meant to be! And it's consensual. Leave them alone!!
Sure,if they both consent to be sterilized so there won't be any more disabled children...81 must be thinking with his little head instead of his big one.
hey hey hey, easy there
the two mutant children are the reasons their are laws against incest plain and simple. This might be the one and only good law set up by government to protect citizens from themselves
Speaking of in breading, why has Israel disappeared from the media spotlight ???
Is the word you're trying to spell "breeding" or did you really mean "breading"? And what the hell has this got to do with Israel?
Logic
Didn't you know everything is Israel's fault.
The point made on sterilisation was a good one but it's a bit late for that in this instance.
Hey Malocchio! Don't you know it's Passover? NO IN-BREADING ALLOWED!
Considering that the woman has a personality disorder, she may not be capable of consenting to this relationship. In some US states his actions could be considered rape if she is not capable of forming consent. Also, why was he put up for adoption, does incest run in the family? Or do mental and physical disabilities.
Though forced sterilization is no longer practiced in the western world because of abuses, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said in a 1927 ruling upholding forced sterilization that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough". The court partially reversed itself in the early 1940's. The Germans are particularly sensitive to forced sterilization because it was used heavily in by the Nazi regime. A good discussion of the Nazi use of sterilization is dramatized in the movie "Judgement at Nuremberg".
I think the intention is to change the subject so that his past will not be exposed... ; )
i have mixed emotions on this particular situation. they grew up strangers, never having met until they were adults. with that being said, let's add a bit to the mix and try this one on.
what about all the children born of artificial insemination? my cousin had 2 daughters using this method, the girls were never told and found out by chance in their 20's. they have no way of ever finding out who the biological father is. how will they ever know if they are having an incestuous relationship? what about adoptions? some children never find biological parents, some never want to. how will they ever know?
it's more than just about the children and the problems that causes. there are many states in the u.s. that allow 1st and 2nd cousins to marry.
these 2 people are trying to make a life for themselves out of the ashes. they should be left in peace to try and do the best they can. it happens, and i am not the one to judge.
would i ever do such a thing? no. but this was virtually an accident, and it could have happened unbeknownst to either one of them. odds and statistics say it's happening to others and they just may not know it. do we punish and ridicule them?
it's just sad.
i think there was recently a case in the uk like this where two siblings met and married then later found out they were siblings, think the marriage was annulled but it cant have been easy on their mental state, its not such a black and white issue, there are grey areas.
The idea of eugenics is not monopolized by Nazis. We share it together.
The Germans may ban births of disabled people with genetic diseases in general to protect their off-springs, following this case.
Hey leave them alone.There are plenty of things that are gross that are legal right?
The word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genēs (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883 to replace the word stirpiculture (also see: Oneida stirpiculture) which he had used previously but which had come to be mocked by people of culture due to its perceived sexual overtones.[36] Galton defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".[37] Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things to many different people. Historically, the term has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. To population geneticists the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without necessarily altering allele frequencies; for example, J. B. S. Haldane wrote that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent"
The human race has sufficient science to test people before they breed to see if they are predisposed to genetic anomalies.
The question is "where is the moral line here"?
Should society dictate that two persons are genetically not to reproduce?
That is what they are saying here. What is to say that any German should not have children with another German. They must go outside the gene pool to procreate. Maybe we should test everyone and put a number on them to to determine their breed ability. You know like Aryan's are a 1 and .....
An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. We don't criminalize love between other people who have produced children with developmental or genetic problems, and most children born to close relatives are healthy.
Icky
Could you cite a source?
Keith Pullman, you know not what you speak of.
?
Some years ago, I lived in an area of Arizona where this is a regular practice. And it's excepted.