Man Who Has 4 Children With Mentally Disabled Sister Fights To Make Incest Legal

A man in Germany who has four children with his mentally disabled sister claimed that the incest law in the country has breached his human rights. The 44-year-old man who was convicted multiple times for his sexual relationship with his sibling is continuing his fight to make incest legal.

Patrick Stuebing, who was adopted from his abusive household in East Germany at the age of three, met his biological sister Susan Karolewski 20 years later. The pair developed a fondness that soon turned into a sexual relationship after their mother died of a heart attack when Stuebing was 23 and Karolewski was just 16, News.com.au reported.

The couple has four children from their relationship and two of them are severely disabled. Their disturbing relationship came to light in 2001, and Stuebing was then sentenced to prison twice after being found guilty of incest.

Since then, the couple started their fight against the country's legal system that made sex between siblings illegal and punishable by up to two years of imprisonment or a fine.

"We were both attracted to each other, and nature took over from us. It was that simple. What else could we do? We followed our instinct and our hearts," Karolewski said.

Karolewski was poorly educated and she could not read or write. Before escaping the abusive household, Stuebing was attacked by his father with a knife when he was just three. When Karolewski met her brother, they both had lots to share, and she soon became heavily dependent on him.

"We both stayed up late into the night to talk to each other about our hopes and dreams. We didn’t know each other in childhood, it’s not the same for us. We fell in love as adults and our love is real. There is nothing we could do about it," Stuebing described how their relationship grew.

However, Stuebing said they do not feel guilty about what has happened between them and appealed to the Court of Human Rights in 2012 to abolish the incest law claiming they both have the right to family life.

Meanwhile, the couple denies the accusation that their two children were born disabled because of their incest relationship. "Two of our children are disabled, but that is not necessarily anything to do with the fact that we are siblings. There are disabled people in our family. We had six brothers and sisters who did not survive in some cases because they were disabled," Stuebing said.