Switzerland might make incest legal.

[joshuaayt]

I love that the spokesman compared incest, by itself an entirely harmless act, to murder.

Well, good for them- as long as reproduction is somehow prevented. There is a good reason people worry about incest, after all.

 

[bpm195]

Mr Daniel Vischer, a Green party MP, said he saw nothing wrong with two consenting adults having sex, even if they were related.
"Incest is a difficult moral question, but not one that is answered by penal law," he was quoted as saying.

This!

It's one thing to say "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" It's a wholly different thing to say "EWWWWW! You should go to jail for that."

 

[spartan231490]

As others have said, nothing really wrong with it (though it does gross me out). I think it's a little hypocritical to not let them breed though, especially when there's no law against people with downs creating little downs babies etc.

It's not hypocritical if I think they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce either. I'm actually a fan of requiring you to obtain a liscence before the childbirth if you want to keep your child. if we did this, questions on the test would includ things like: when is it ok to shake a baby? When is it okay to duck-tape your child to a wall? Is it ok to leave your child alone in the pool because he/she has water wings?
maybe even through in some questions to rate overall basic common sense and intelligence because some people are just too stupid to raise thier kids properly, god knows I went to school with many individuals who are living breathing proof of that fact.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

tl;dr - I think legal incest is pretty much equal to legal abuse.

Evidently this topic was tl;dr for you, as all your points have been addressed and dismissed already.

 

[ramboondiea]

this is so wrong, the chances of any child being born with no problems is minute. and legalising it is paramount to encouraging it.
come on Switzerland, get your crap together

No, social pressure prevents it from happening in virtually all cases. Still, if two adults want to have sex, who am I to tell them they can't?
It's just strange that Switzerland would do that, considering their track record as far as social progressiveness goes. Women couldn't vote until the early 1970s...

if they want to have sex they can, i literally dont care, but this is encouraging the act which could lead to children, and yeah you;ll read a million times on here about how it wont effect the child but it does, the lickelyhood of a child from same family parents is about 3 times that of different family parents.

also the social stigma attached with it, what child should be put throu that?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear: yes, the risk of genetic damage is rather high in cases of incest, which is why I would strongly discourage family members from procreating, and would also like to encourage the entire south of the US to stop doing so.
Anyway, the stigma associated with incest usually prevents children being born in cases of consensual sex, which is what I meant. The legalization hardly encourages the act, but it removes legal penalties for people being idiots.

exactly! if you remove the deterrent then whats stopping them. people are more likely to do something if they know theres no punishment. and social stigmas can be ignored, like you said; people being idiots, you think everyone of them will decide to be safe?

 

[tharglet]

Exactly, honestly I'm surprised people even needed it to be illegal. I figured people wouldn't do it just out of principle. I thought it kind of went without saying, never mind the birth defects and social standards, it should just sort of go without saying.
I think anyway.... I'm not going to begrudge the people who plan to make it legal but I'm not particularly impressed either.

You're assuming everyone has the same moral judgments. There are some fairly universal "hates" and "desires" that permeate this world, but we don't all share 'em. Sex is one of the universally touted desires, but we still have asexual people. I'm not in the asexual camp, but there are a fair number around (there was a thread recently about it too).
There are a whole bunch of things I was brought to believe were true, and universally so, but growing up I found that it wasn't the case.

Incest isn't something I'd be interested in, but I know there's people out there that do so (don't know any personally tho).

So no, it doesn't go 'without saying' .

 

[BioHazardMan]

the problem is, inevitably, it will harm somebody. That's why it's illegal, not because it's creepy, or out of the norm, but because serious harm can come to the child if it is born of familial relationship.

Totally agree with this guy, we have these laws in place to keep defects away from children, to say otherwise is just stupid.

 

[DTWolfwood]

so 3 cases that were reported in 26 years and because no1 else has been caught doing it they want to repeal the law?

What does it cost more money to keep it a law as to not keep it a law? Y are they even wasting their time/money on this?

?Murder is also quite rare in Switzerland but no one suggests that we remove that as an office from the statutes.? lol

i mean its like those old ass english laws that say its legal to kill a walshman with a bow and arrow on certain days of the week. They dont make sense anymore but you don't see parliament gathering to ratify it.

 

[tharglet]

people need to read up on how breeding works. just because two family members have a child does not mean that child will have birth defects. what happens is that it increases the odds that a genetic defect apparent in both dna contributors will be apparent in the offsprings dna as well.

This too. Seems a lot of people seem to think inbreeding leads to instant degeneration, which isn't true.
Yes, it's better to breed outside of your own family line, but it's not necessarily fatal to breed within it, especially if it isn't many generations.

 

[Danzaivar]

the problem is, inevitably, it will harm somebody. That's why it's illegal, not because it's creepy, or out of the norm, but because serious harm can come to the child if it is born of familial relationship.

Totally agree with this guy, we have these laws in place to keep defects away from children, to say otherwise is just stupid.

We should ban people who are both the carrier for horrific diseases from breeding with each other then (I.e. Sickle cell) as well. Yay for Eugenics!

While we're at it I hear black people are at higher risk of heart disease, we should probably make sure they end up in mixed couples. Gingers are recessive and have a high risk of skin cancer, may as well end them with the current generation running about!

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

I believe it's illegal in many places (here included) so it's not exactly surprising that the Switzerland government is following the 'government knows best' trend.

As for my opinion...well, I don't think the government should have a say. If no one is getting hurt, there shouldn't be a crime as far as I'm concerned. But whether or not incest itself is an issue is different.

I PERSONALLY find it distasteful, to say the least. I think family exists as a bond that isn't and shouldn't be mingled with sex at all, but can still be powerful. I think that's one of the great points about close family; that there can be that connection and loyalty without any sexual aspects at all, even minor. Sex just...doesn't belong there. It's like sacred ground.

I don't know, I guess I'm against it but I'm not about to support condemning people for it. The government shouldn't have this power, most of all. It's already taboo, there's already a mess of reasons not to do it, but throwing in capitol punishment is just overkill and is hurting those involved more than it helps.

All assuming the acts are consensual, of course.

 

[me.vicky]

Might as well make it legal, I mean the people who are already out there doin' it probably aren't all that concerned about it being illegal right now anyways.

As long as we're talking two consenting adults then I don't have a problem with it. Just don't mess around with kids.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

this is so wrong, the chances of any child being born with no problems is minute. and legalising it is paramount to encouraging it.
come on Switzerland, get your crap together

No, social pressure prevents it from happening in virtually all cases. Still, if two adults want to have sex, who am I to tell them they can't?
It's just strange that Switzerland would do that, considering their track record as far as social progressiveness goes. Women couldn't vote until the early 1970s...

if they want to have sex they can, i literally dont care, but this is encouraging the act which could lead to children, and yeah you;ll read a million times on here about how it wont effect the child but it does, the lickelyhood of a child from same family parents is about 3 times that of different family parents.

also the social stigma attached with it, what child should be put throu that?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear: yes, the risk of genetic damage is rather high in cases of incest, which is why I would strongly discourage family members from procreating, and would also like to encourage the entire south of the US to stop doing so.
Anyway, the stigma associated with incest usually prevents children being born in cases of consensual sex, which is what I meant. The legalization hardly encourages the act, but it removes legal penalties for people being idiots.

exactly! if you remove the deterrent then whats stopping them. people are more likely to do something if they know theres no punishment. and social stigmas can be ignored, like you said; people being idiots, you think everyone of them will decide to be safe?

What is stopping you from drinking yourself to death? What is stopping you from smoking a carton of cigarettes every day? What is stopping you from running around in a pink jumpsuit and shouting "look at me, I'm totally flaming gay" (disregard if that happens to be true, no judgments from me)? None of those are illegal, sans the drinking age bit, yet you don't see too many people partaking in those activities.

 

[Lord Kloo]

Whilst no law should technically stop two consenting adults and us Escapists should not frown on people for what they do (unless they troll) and so it should be all well and good..

Un//fortunately human nature expels and isolates the alien, the weak and the strange and so this will never take off except in the backwater slums of the world where it already happens..

 

[DiMono]

I fully support this if both girls are hot.

I kid, I kid. Seriously though, if they're two consenting adults, then why does it matter if they're related? Incest laws are there mostly (as far as I understand) to reduce the likelihood of recessive gene disorders popping up. Anything more than that can basically be summarized as "ewww" factors, but really, that ultimately comes down to taste and preference. If ewww is being made illegal, than necessarily obesity must be outlawed too, as well as exotic food.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

The sexual side of all walks of life have been embraced in recent years, the usual argument being "if it's consensual, it shouldn't matter what goes on." True, sex does not mean that the couple are intending a child as the result. However, the fact that there's even the slightest chance of a child being produced from incest is a good enough argument against it's legalization, especially considering the "slightest chance" is actually a likely possibility. Too many "accidental" children are born each day for anyone to credibly argue against the likelihood of inbreeding. And I'm not even going to get into teen pregnancy.

Point is, there's a reason this was outlawed in the first place. Actually, at the moment, I'm more concerned as to what brought this issue to the government's attention over all the other thousand issues they get everyday.

 

[Giest4life]

Nope, no problems with that. It's more of a shame that they have it illegal to being with.

the problem is, inevitably, it will harm somebody. That's why it's illegal, not because it's creepy, or out of the norm, but because serious harm can come to the child if it is born of familial relationship.

Totally agree with this guy, we have these laws in place to keep defects away from children, to say otherwise is just stupid.

As opposed to pregnant women smoking, and drinking alcohol? Why aren't we banning people who test + for HIV from having sex--or other STD's for that matter? This really is, for me, tantamount to forbidding an interracial relationship.

If two people wanna do it, I say let them.