Laws banning cousins marrying 'outdated'
Tuesday, 23 Dec 2008 07:56
Laws banning first cousins from marrying based on "outdated" assumptions
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Laws banning first cousins from marrying are based on outdated assumptions about a high degree of genetic risk for offspring and should be repealed, experts claim.
In a report published in the journal PLoS Biology today, laws against cousin marriage are described as "ill-advised".
"Neither the scientific nor social assumptions behind such legislation stand up to close scrutiny," said Professor Hamish Spencer, from the University of Otago.
He added that a 2002 review of birth defects in offspring of cousins found the risk was much smaller than generally assumed.
The US National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) report estimated the average risk as 1.7 – 2 per cent higher than the background population risk of congenital defects and 4.4 per cent higher than general risk for dying in childhood.
"Women over the age of 40 have a similar risk of having children with birth defects and no one is suggesting they should be prevented from reproducing. People with Huntington's Disease or other autosomal dominant disorders have a 50 per cent risk of transmitting the underlying genes to offspring and they are not barred either," Professor Spencer states.
He added that laws banning cousin marriage or imposing restrictions on it reflected "outmoded prejudices about immigrants and the rural poor and relies on oversimplified views of heredity".
"There is no scientific grounding for it," he concludes.