Child born of incest?

Second cousins cannot commit incest. The blood line is too far apart. It is legal for them to marry and have children. The same is true of first cousins, depending on where the family lives since laws vary from state to state. What concerns me is the father having so many children with his relatives. It sounds as though professional intervention is in order.

My brother and his wife are second cousins and have turned out 4 very intelligent and well-rounded children. I know of another couple that is the same way. However, at least in my brother's relationship, it was the first "close" marriage in the recent family history. But I would also want to check with your doctor.

Teaching - I don't know if you were doing a forum search on the topic, but I noticed that you've responded to several threads about incest this morning. Just note - all of them are quite old. This one is from 2009.

I remember taking a college class, and the professor said that it is mostly social stigma that does not allow relatives to mate, and fear is used to discourage it. The children do have a better chance of inheriting disorders/diseases, because relatives share more genes that carry the same diseases. So, the more of these bad genes, the greater chance the child inherits them. There are many diseases that require that both parents carry that specific gene. There's just a much greater chance that they're both carriers for the same disease in the case of relatives.