Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Healthcare workers across Britain have been ordered to stop advising first cousins not to marry each other, following new guidance from a government-funded database that determined the previous approach was “unacceptable.” The new approach, which replaces “don’t do this” with “have you considered speaking with someone who will explain why you shouldn’t do this,” has been described as non-stigmatizing.
Just another cousin-on-cousin marriage. (twinsterphoto/depositphotos)
The guidance comes from the National Child Mortality Database, an organization funded by £3.5 million in taxpayer money to record how children die. The NCMD determined that cousin marriages carry only a “slightly increased” genetic risk, a phrasing that suggests someone in the room argued for “moderately” and lost. Staff are now instructed to refer couples to genetic counselors, who can help them “consider arranging future marriages outside of the family.” The guidance does not clarify whose future marriages, how far outside, or what happens when the counselor’s advice is ignored. Presumably, that’s kept in a different database.
It remains unclear who requested this guidance or what problem they thought it would solve.
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has already adapted to the new framework by hiring a “close relative marriage neonatal nurse/midwife,” a job title that now exists in the NHS payroll system. The posting described duties that included caring for families in which the parents are “cousins, uncles, aunts, or other closely related family members.” The word “other” in that sentence is doing considerable work. Bradford did not explain what prompted the hire, or whether demand for the role is rising, steady, or simply now being noted publicly.
Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden, who is sponsoring a bill to ban cousin marriage outright, called the guidance an example of the NHS “taking the knee to damaging and oppressive cultural practices.” He added that the practice threatens “societal cohesion,” a concept he appeared prepared to defend without reference to the royal family’s family tree, which notoriously frequently loops back on itself.
Other NHS materials reportedly claim cousin marriage has benefits. What benefits, specifically, have not been released.
The Habsburgs could not be reached for comment, on account of having died out, though their input would have been extensive
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