Not The Onion

19455 readers

717 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

Links to news stories from...
...credible sources, with...
...their original headlines, that...
...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

kescusay@lemmy.world

441

NHS defends cousin marriages because ‘only 15 percent lead to birth defects’ (www.yahoo.com)

submitted 1 week ago by bytesonbike@discuss.online to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

124 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Midwives have been told about the benefits of “close relative marriage” in training documents that minimise the risks to couples’ children.

The documents claim “85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children” and warn staff that “close relative marriage is often stigmatised in England”, adding claims that “the associated genetic risks have been exaggerated”.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] blady_blah@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

On the scale of things, I think this rate's a "who the fuck cares?".

I don't really care if cousins get married. I don't really care if they have kids together. I do care if they have birth defects and we should do things medically responsible to reduce or eliminate birth defects, but the whole cousin thing doesn't really bother me as long as there's no external pressure (like British royalty or stereotypical Southern Hicks).

Who is really that bent out of shape on this and why should we care?

[–] Bazell@lemmy.zip 5 points 5 days ago

As you stated, the worst thing of such marriage is having kids with health problems that can accumulate very fast with each new generation(silent mutations that get only worse and someday pop out with loud bang). This is mostly the only thing that stops such relationships.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 5 days ago

I think it's just another dog whistle tbh, like caring about animal welfare when it's Halal, or worrying about parking when a HMO is opened.

Cousin marriage is a brown person activity, so suddenly pearls are clutched.