A strange attraction

It seems that a pair of twins, separated at birth, found each other somehow, fell in love and got married, all the time not suspecting in the least that they were related (let alone twins).

But the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Alton, who told the Lords the case had been revealed to him by the judge involved, said the pair had felt an “inevitable attraction”.

No wonder really.

Lord Alton is now calling for the right for children to find the true identity of their birth parents.

This in itself is OK, although I'm not sure I see the need for it myself. But then I am already in touch with my biological family. The problem arises when he starts to justify it on the back of this (pretty isolated) case.

And if you don’t know you are biologically related someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur.”

Well, really. What's the chance of that?

60 million people in the country and he reckons this is going to be a common occurrence. With the low level of children being given up for adoption in western countries these days and the sheer statistical improbabiliy of it all that argument really holds no water. Couple that with the fact that it's actually unlikely to cause any harm.

Sure, inbreeding is not a good thing, and mutations can arise over the course of a number of generations. Most people don't have this sort of family tree though and a one off union is unlikely to produce any major issues.

The best quote of this article though was when they go on to talk about children born with the help of fertility treatment. Because they may not be born into a traditional family unit:

It had said children born through fertility treatment needed a “social network”, not a father and mother.

But that one deserves a post of it's own at a later date ...