If you based your argument against incest on the premise that the children might have genetic defects, then you might as well extend that to ANYONE with genetic defects i.e. sufferers of Parkinsons disease, MS, AIDS, etc. which I am sure you won’t hear many people talking about. Eugenics is a sensitive topic.

I agree it SHOULDN’T happen, but lets all pull our heads out of the sand and be realist for a change ;).

The people who will suffer most from this are the children.

Let them stay together if he has a vasectomy or she has her tubes tied.

End of story. It seems so obvious.

Why make this discussion so complicated?

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There is a reason why this discussion is so complicated: outlawing incest is ridiculous.
Even if the goal is to prevent mentally retarded children from being born, it is a ridiculous thing to outlaw. You may as well outlaw bad parenting or promiscuity.

What are you going to do?? Put them in jail??? Take the children away?? Confiscate their property??

“In the event that there is actually two consensting adults, then you must ask: how do you define harm?”
No, you must not ask that question. The concept of harm does not apply.

Rather, you restrict the discussion solely to whether the actions were consensual as you did by questioning maturity and mental capacity.

Nevertheless, consent is consent. Just because a person is unintelligent or misinformed and makes what-we-would-define-as bad choices, we still can not dismiss their consent particularly for things that are subjective.

“It is completely different to produce them on purpose.”
You can never really know the intent of a person.

In the event that there is actually two consensting adults, then you must ask: how do you define harm?. Is increased change of genetic defeact harm? Slippery slope indeed.

It’s interesting how the arguments for decriminalizing incest sound sort of familiar.

4 out of 4 is not a situation where we can say maybe. 4 out of 4 is practically guaranteed.

How can you love someone so much that you would willingly and with intent, produce disabled progeny? How is giving broken progeny to your love a good thing ever?

It is one thing for a couple who are normal and healthy to produce a disabled child. You still love that child, but you also know that it is just an extraordinary circumstance. It is completely different to produce them on purpose.

I am not advocating sterilization or that kind of nonsense. I am just saying it is one factor that should remain in the picture to maintain a cultural and legislative stigma against incest.

It brings to mind the Canadian couple who were deaf and who used fertility technology to ensure that their child would also be deaf (the female embryos had a high chance of carrying the genetic defect).

Eugenics is going to be a BIG topic of debate over the next few decades.