The politicos and bureaucrats of the United Kingdom (UK) manage to make the hot mess they have created even hotter and messier.
Last week, the National Health Service (NHS) England Genomics Education Programme published guidance that appeared to endorse the benefits of first-cousin marriages. The proposed guidelines minimized the potential genetic consequences and risks of inherited health problems, while also emphasizing the cultural diversity argument.
Research into first-cousin marriage describes various potential benefits, including stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages (resources, property and inheritance can be consolidated rather than diluted across households). In addition, though first-cousin marriage is linked to an increased likelihood of a child having a genetic condition or a congenital anomaly, there are many other factors that also increase this chance (such as parental age, smoking, alcohol use and assisted reproductive technologies), none of which are banned in the UK.
Two developments prompted this publication.
The first of those developments is the influx of immigrants, legal and otherwise, from South Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, where first-cousin marriages are a common practice.
The second is a recent move by a conservative Member of Parliament, Richard Holden, to codify the ban on first cousin marriages into national law, as there is currently no such prohibition. He argued the public health issue justifies the new rule, and that the practice is also a threat to women’s freedom, as women may be pressured into marrying their cousins.
Richard Holden, the Tory MP, told the Mail On Sunday: “Our NHS should stop taking the knee to damaging and oppressive cultural practices.“The Conservatives want to see an end to cousin marriage as a backdoor to immigration too, but Labour are deaf to these sensible demands.“Sir Keir Starmer should stop running scared of the misogynistic community controllers and their quislings who appear in the form of cultural relativist-obsessed sociology professors, and ban a practice the overwhelming majority, from every community in Britain, want to see ended for good.”
The backlash to the NHS guidance was significant enough that it was deleted from the NHS website.
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) has come under fire for potentially prioritizing cultural sensitivity over significant health concerns after it published a report last week questioning a major issue of public debate — should first-cousin marriages be banned?Debate over the issue heightened earlier this year after U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would not ban the practice outright, despite known risks to future generations, as children born from first cousins are at increased risk for diseases like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis….The article, which was posted to the NHS’s Genomics Education Program’s website and titled, “Should the UK government ban first-cousin marriage,” had been removed by Monday morning, and Fox News Digital could not gain direct access to the report, nor did the NHS immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions.
However, independent-minded people have gotten very savvy about screenshots and archives.
I just hope this doesn’t land Nicholas G in a British jail.
Now, to be historically accurate, the British didn’t frown on first-cousin marriages, and there are many famous examples.
For most in the UK, the prospect of marrying a cousin is largely alien. But it wasn’t always so unusual. The father of evolution Charles Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Their son, the Victorian scientist Sir George Darwin, went on to estimate that cousin marriages accounted for almost one in 20 aristocratic unions in 19th Century Britain. One of them was Queen Victoria, who married her first cousin, Prince Albert. The novel Wuthering Heights is full of fictional examples.
But I will simply point out that Queen Victoria’s line suffered from the dreadful blood disease hemophilia, which led to a number of tragic consequences as the royals kept intermarrying.
But one must ask how much more erosion of its culture the British will endure, and would Queen Victoria even recognize the land over which she once ruled?
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