The former chair of the UK’s fertility watchdog has called for a vigorous public campaign to oppose marriage of first cousins. Baroness Ruth Deech, a family law professor and bioethicist, and one-time chair of the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority, says that children are at risk of being born with genetic defects.

The issue is potentially an explosive one in Britain, because the targets of her criticism are mainly Muslim. According to the London Times, “Fifty-five per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins and in Bradford the figure is 75 per cent. British Pakistanis represent 3 per cent of all births in Britain but one third of children with recessive disorders.”

Baroness Deech believes that cousin marriage is also a barrier to the successful integration of minority communities. She does not want a ban on the practice, but a public education campaign to make people aware of the dangers. “There is no reason, one could argue, why there should not be a campaign to highlight the risks and the preventative measures, every bit as vigorous as those centring on smoking, obesity and Aids,” she says.

She suggests that Muslim couples should at least use IVF to select embryos without genetic defects. The Jewish community, she pointed out, has nearly eliminated Tay-Sachs disease by testing men and women for the recessive gene which causes it. When a marriage is proposed, a register is consulted to see if the couple are both carriers. If they are, no marriage will be arranged.

Ironically, as the Times points out, one of the most famous cousin marriages was that of Charles Darwin with his cousin Emma Wedgewood. They had 10 children, many of them quite sickly. Three died at birth or in childhood. ~ London Times, Mar 20