DAILY MAIL : I COULDN'T HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE from December 2022, Teresa Weiler wrote this testimonial published by Daily Mail. It is her story of discovering she was born due to brother-sister incest and how this knowledge strongly influenced her choices to not also have children.
As I read this I felt for her, very much so, but I also wish she had been better informed in youth. I'm not sure that if she had children they would be "monsters." And I think she might have benefited from counseling.
Last year I met a woman who is good friends with a woman who has a few children that are the result of her father having sex with her as a teenager. I was told these children were prospering and that their mother was fine. It was told to me by someone who is anti-abortion, perhaps as an example of how well things can turn out. But when this same woman told me that children of incest never suffer I had to question that. I said I knew of a family in which there had been first cousin marriages through the generations and they had all sorts of mental illness, learning disabilities, and developmental delays... They said it was to keep the land in their family in Europe. Though for two generations the immigrants children had married outside that close family, these medical issues were not resolved. (And I was there when the immigrant grandparents were trying to "match-make" their grand-daughter with a cousin as if they had lived in America for years!)
I also thought of the ancient royal Egyptians who did have genetic negatives from close interbreeding.
Today, however, should you be concerned about passing down genetic issues to your offspring, there is genetic testing and counseling.
And, I won't say "there's always adoption," as I realize from friends that it has gotten expensive and difficult. However, if you do love children, there are other ways that a person can get involved with children in education, in fostering, and in volunteer work.
