Yesterday came the remarkable story of two twins, separated at birth for adoption, yet somehow managed to find each other to fall in love and get married. It would be an amazing tale if not for the fact they are genetically related and living in an age where "incest" is a taboo and illegal regardless of the context. With a court annulling their marriage there is no word (rightfully) on what the two have gone on to do, whether they have been shamed through the existence of the taboo, whether they have been able to overcome the past and forge a new sibling relationship or if indeed they still undertake in their love for one another in a less obvious manner.

The issue takes pace, however when political discussions start to take place that could have a major effect the adoption and reproductive services of this country. Lord Alton, an independent lord, had the following to say...

I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived.

The issue here is the fine balance of rights for donors, for the perception of a child born as a product of IVF using donated sperm or eggs, and for the protection and rights of those same children. It is very easy for Lord Alton to stand up and use this example, one that is extremely unlikely to happen in any future case, to try and push through changes that we know some have been trying to make law for some time but it really needs to be handled much more delicately. These twins to be able to avoid what had happened would have to both know they were adopted and both know their parents details so that, as would seemingly become par for the course in Lord Alton's world, hey can compare birth certificates if they want to get jiggy.

The trouble with this is that while on paper this sounds perfect, in reality it means every child born from donated sperm or eggs will know who their biological parents are, and this is a fundamental problem for liberal politics when it comes to the rights of the parents. That we have so many people donating their reproductive matter to allow those less fortunate to have a child is a great virtue for the country, and that we have people so willing to adopt children not even in part their own goes to show the power of even surrogate love. But do these people doing their bit necessarily want the 10 children they have now fathered (to take the sperm example) to start contacting them and making family bonds? Does a person putting their child up for adoption want the added heartache of knowing this tough decision could become a tough reunion years down the line that they might not be able to emotionally deal with?

Given that instances like these are only ever conceivably going to create "first generation" siblings in terms of incest, the need to truly warn them of the situation they're facing is overhyped, with the dangers of any of their relation apparently being in the range of a 1% higher chance of birth defects than from normal couples (3% to begin with according to what I've read). Is this very lack of any real risks worth stripping the rights of people to donate and to put up for adoption? Is it worth potentially causing a drop in donors as they fear that their good deed will clash with their choice of life in the future, or even worse cause people that don't want their child to truly abandon them and leave it to fate as to whether the child makes it to an adoption agency let alone a good home just to keep their name out of the picture?

The arguments being made are weak and always have been, but the added issue of incest has jumped the issue to the front pages of online news outlets around the country. Given that personally I cannot see for the life of me why any law should infringe on the twins in question to begin with given the minimal risks, and the fact that socially they were clearly not brought up as brother an sister, I think it is tenuous at best to call it by the name of incest given the connotations that such words bring about because of the taboo. This wasn't lack of rights for adopted babies that caused an underhanded, seedy and evil act that shouldn't happen between relations; this was an unfortunate and unlikely circumstance that was going to result in almost zero risk to anyone had they not found out. So remind me why it's so important for us to change those laws again Lord Alton?