I find the incest debate very interesting because it is primarily about societal norms. Certainly there are risks related with generations of inbreeding. As others have pointed out, however, there are other things which result in much greater risk that are not looked at quite as negatively as incest in our society. I would guess that if one were to do a poll asking to rank incest, smoking during pregnancy, drinking alcohol during pregnancy and taking illegal drugs during pregnancy the majority of people would say incest was the worst. It is my understanding, however, that incest poses less immediate risk than the others (meaning the risk to that pregnancy, not generations down the line).
There has also been mention of the psychological impacts of an incestual relationship. It seems to me that any negative psychological impacts would be caused by the taboos of incest. If the people involved were never told that incest was wrong, I doubt that they would have any feelings of guilt. It is the views of society that creates these feelings, not the acts themselves.
I am not taking a stance on the subject yet, I am still digesting all of the comments and trying to formulate my thoughts on the topic. I do, however, think that the discussion of a incestual relationship between a parent and under-aged child is irrelevant in this conversation. Regardless of the relation of the parties, that is wrong. Sex between an adult and a child is child molestation and/or rape. So in my opinion, sex between parent and child is wrong based on those grounds alone. Obviously this is different with an adult child.
One thing I have not seen mentioned is incest between people who do not know they are related. Consider examples of adopted children who do not know their parents and/or siblings. Another situation where this could easily arise is half-siblings, especially those with fathers who fathered many children with different women and never had anything to do with the kids. Would sex between the people in these situations be the same as between siblings or parents/children or knew they were related?
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