First cousin marriage has become a hot topic in recent months. Richard Holden MP asked the Government to consider restricting first cousins marrying and also to make sexual activity between first cousins a criminal offence.
The MP's question followed in the wake of law changes to ban cousin marriage in Tennessee and Norway.
David Williamson, political editor, at the Sunday Express wrote an article about this latest development.
One reason given for banning first cousin marriage is concern about an increased risk of birth defects and in children born into these unions.
PET Director Sarah Norcross told the Sunday Express:
'Marriage between first cousins should be permitted. This practice is less common in the UK than it once was, but it remains perfectly acceptable to significant numbers of people. Similarly, it would be misguided to seek to make a criminal offence of sexual activity between consenting adults who happen to be first cousins.
'Those who wish to outlaw these practices seem to be motivated partly by distaste and unfamiliarity, and partly by concerns about child health. It is important to disentangle these things. Distaste and unfamiliarity are insufficient justification for prohibiting cousin marriage.
'As for child health, it is true that people whose parents are first cousins are at a higher risk of certain genetic conditions than people whose parents have no (known) genetic relationship. Even so, the majority of children of first cousins will be healthy.
'The severest risks to health in such situations arise not solely from parents being first cousins, but also from additional factors, such as parents being double first cousins (meaning that they share the same two sets of grandparents) or coming from communities where cousin marriage has been very common for many generations.'
'The best approach to mitigating risks to children of first cousins – particularly where there is a known family history of a particular disease – is to encourage couples who are first cousins to seek medical advice. This might involve premarital carrier testing and genetic counselling.'
You can read a comment piece entitled Here we go again: misinformation and confusion on consanguineous marriage continues about first cousin marriage by Professor Alan Bittles on BioNews. He wrote when this article when cousin marriage was last a hot topic in 2011.
