Incest should not be illegal.

Happy to think with you today. R1: Acceptance and Basic Arguments. Con can rebut if they wish. R2: Counterargument and Expansion R3: Counterargument and Conclusion. Clarification: The debate will be centered around whether or not incest should be permissible in society. The claim is not that incest should be permissible with no holds barred. The claim is that it should be permissible. That there are, In fact, No legitimate arguments against it. This does not mean statutory rape is acceptable. This does not mean procreation should be encouraged. It is not a denial of science in that it accepts there are considerations to be had. Incest Definition - Sexual activity between those who are closely related. The Webster definition goes on to say 'closely related enough to be forbidden by law. ' I believe this part of the definition should be removed and replaced with 'regulated by law. ' Basic premises: 1. The act of incest in and of itself does not require the participants to have a child. There is nothing inherently wrong with sisters and brothers having consensual sex. Nor mothers and sons, Uncles and nephews, Et cetera. 2. Contraception or sterilization removes the incest baby problem to the extent that it exists. While contraception nor sterilization are 100%, Abortions may be used to cover the remaining low-probability conceptions. 3. There are couples living today who are aware they have a high percentage chance to conceive children with mental or physical defects and yet they are allowed to have sex. There is no requirement for couples to be tested before they have children. The first child's chance of defects is usually unknown before tests may be done in the womb or after the child is born. However, There are many couples who know their next child will have a high chance to have handicaps of some sort yet they still have sex, And some even still try to become pregnant taking no steps to alleviate this. I would completely agree that those engaging in incest should get tested. They should willingly get themselves sterilized after egg-freezing or sperm-freezing if they are being morally consistent. At the very least, They should use contraception or temporary sterilization and accept that they may need an abortion in worst case scenarios. However, It is extremely difficult to say that incest babies having a slightly higher chance of defects (first generation) than non-incest babies is enough grounds to make incest illegal throughout the country when pairs of individuals with even higher probabilities of defects are not penalized in any form or fashion. Based on these premises I'm forced to conclude the following: If your argument against incest is purely on reproductive grounds, You have insufficient grounds to make incest illegal. Because the grounds of all incest arguments I have heard revolve around the reproductive aspect, I am forced to conclude there is nothing inherently wrong with incest relationships themselves. There are a plethora of controls in place to control the reproductive byproducts in the event that the incest-pair is tested and found to have a high probability of mentally defective children. The problem with all laws is that it inherently creates an underground. A level of humans that have to hide from the rest of the society, At least in part, In order to live the lives they want to live. This is nearly impossible to avoid. You will have to make killing illegal. You will have to make stealing illegal. Some people will want to steal and kill no matter what. The idea is that if we can't formulate an argument that can show that something is bad to such an extent that it cannot be mitigated, Then we harm society as a whole to forbid it from happening. If murderous impulses could be shown to be controlled via simulation, Or if stealing thrills could be gained via simulation where no harm was done to society, We could have a chance to decrease the underground hidden factions within our society, Improving stability and happiness for all. I am aware that even if my argument is solid and no holes are poked in it, I will likely lose this debate because the audience is likely to have great prejudice against the topic. I would submit to the audience that this is the logical conclusion, However much your emotions will try to destabilize your logic. This is nothing but a friendly reminder that emotion rules reason, And that allowing emotion to rule reason throws society into the rollercoaster that of emotion, Rather than the stability of logic. May your thoughts be clear, -Thoht