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”.
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?
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.
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.