Denmark Party Calls For Decriminalizing Consanguinamory

From the Copenhagen Post website cphpost.dk comes this report by Ray Weaver about the position taken by the Enhedslisten politcal party to eliminate bigoted laws against consensual incest...

The recent case of a brother and sister in the city of Aarhus who said that they are in love and have a five-month-old child together has raised a national debate about sibling sex. The couple, who share the same father but have different mothers, face jail time for violating Denmark’s current statute prohibiting incest and inbreeding.

Why should their love be criminal? They should be free to be out and, if they want, to marry. Sounds like a possible case of Genetic Sexual Attraction. I don't think I'd heard about this couple before and I want to see if I can find any more information.

“It is not the government’s job to interfere in who should have children with whom,” party spokesperson Pernille Skipper told Politiken newspaper. “It is a grotesque approach to sex and families.”

Thank you! The article then takes a look at Discredited Argument #18...

The possibility of passing on genetic defects and damaging the social order have been the main reasons cited for making it illegal for siblings to have sex and produce offspring. But Niels Tommerup, a professor of genetics at the University of Copenhagen, said that mutations resulting from inbreeding can be both positive and negative.

"Our focus is always on the negative consequences like diseases and malformations," he told Information newspaper. “But positive mutations help develop the species.”

Tommerup said that mutations like those that occur due to inbreeding can be “biologically positive”.

Regardless, don't people have reproductive rights? Notice no mention is made in this article about the child having any problems. I would think they would list any problems in this report if there had been any. Most children born to close relatives are healthy.

Vagn Greve, a law professor at Copenhagen Business School, would like to see even more taboos removed. Greve said there is “no logical reason” that sex between parents and their children should be against the law.

"In my view, we should decriminalise sex between father and daughter as long as they are both adult and the relationship is voluntary,” Greve told metroXpress newspaper. “There is no reason to treat the biological family different from the social family, but the age limit should be 18 or 20-years-old.”

It is good to see people making some sense and dealing with the issue rationally, rather than with fear and ignorance.

Greve said that sex among immediate family members has been legal in countries like Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and France for 200 years, and that there is no evidence that it has damaged either families or society.

Currently, section 210 of the Danish Penal Code prohibits "sexual intercourse with a descendant" and is punishable by up to six years in prison.

According to Greve, arguments for maintaining the ban on sibling sex and sex between parents and their adult children do not hold up. He compared them to past laws that banned homosexuality and infidelity.

"These are moral questions and it is not the government’s job to interfere with the sexual relationships of adults,” he said.

Thank you! Let's keep moving towards relationship rights for all adults, including full marriage equality for all!

Read about people who are, or have been, in consanguinamorous relationships.