Did you think the headline was a joke?
The UK's National Health Service is the country's government-run (socialistic) healthcare system.
Last week, NHS England's "Genomics Education Programme" seriously published guidance that said incest is okay, even if such inbreeding comes with double the risk of genetic defects (this is basic science, folks!).
Even dumber (somehow) is the fact that the NHS uses King Henry VIII as an example of cousin marriage.
Are the people in charge of the UK's healthcare system actually this dumb?
(Intelligence is affected by inbreeding too!)
Divorcing your wife and marrying her cousin is not consanguineous marriage under any sense of the word. The word "consanguineous" literally means "of the same blood" in Latin. It's talking about a man marrying his own cousin.
Third graders should be smart enough to figure that out (may God have mercy on England).
Fortunately, the NHS was forced to apologize (for the moment) after swift public backlash.
Dr Patrick Nash, an expert on religious law and director of the Pharos Foundation social science research group in Oxford, called the guidance 'truly dismaying'.
'Cousin marriage is incest, plain and simple, and needs to be banned with the utmost urgency - there is no "balance" to be struck between this cultural lifestyle choice and the severe public health implications it incurs.
'This official article is deeply misleading and should be retracted with an apology so that the public is not misled by omission and half-truths.'
Critics say the NHS is trying to appease the large number of Muslim migrants who have flooded the UK in recent years. 1.6 million Pakistanis lived in Great Britain as of 2021, or 2.2% of the population. Pakistanis have an insanely high rate of incest - a whopping 61% of all marriages are consanguineous. This has followed Pakistanis to the UK - 55% of all married Pakistanis in Great Britain are wed to their cousins.
Across the Muslim world, 25%-50% of all marriages are between blood relatives, leading to serious genetic issues (which have serious implications for the burden on a nation's healthcare system). Western Europe and the U.S., by comparison, are at less than 1%.
Among Indians (now 2.9% of the UK's population), consanguineous marriage is lower (8% or so of marriages), but exceeds 25% of marriages in dedicated Hindu communities, particularly those from southern India.
The NHS responded to the criticism of its guidelines by claiming they are not the British government's official position (yet). The NHS says it just wanted to have a dialogue about incest as part of an important democratic discussion.
A spokesman for NHS England said: 'The article published on the website of the Genomics Education Programme is a summary of existing scientific research and the public policy debate. It is not expressing an NHS view.'
A few comments:
Since the UK seems to have forgotten both science and the biblical foundation of its entire legal system, I'll conclude with a Bible verse to kindly help the British authorities remember that the God who created reproduction and DNA gave helpful instructions about incest 3,500 years ago:
'No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD.' - Leviticus 18:6
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