Tuesday, January 15, 2008

THE GUARDIAN
January 15, 2008

Did a pair of twins really get married by mistake?
by Jon Henley

So you're sitting in the pub and your nice-but-naive friend says: "Hey, I heard the most amazing story the other day. There were these twins, right, a boy and a girl, who were separated at birth and adopted by different families. And, like, years later, by an amazing coincidence, they meet. And fall madly in love, and get married. Straight up! Then, obviously, they find out they're actually brother and sister. And it all has to be annulled, and they're just devastated. It's the ultimate nightmare. Can you imagine?"

Assuming your brain is still functioning like the well-oiled piece of precision engineering it is, your response would, I trust, be: "That's a wind-up if ever I heard one. Think about it for a minute - you mean these two meet by accident, discover not only that they were both adopted but were born on exactly the same day in exactly the same town, and still never pause to wonder whether they might be related? Pull the other one. What did it say on their birth certificates?"

Last week it was reported that this unlikely scenario had actually taken place - and news outlets the world over went bananas. Biologists and psychotherapists came forward to confirm the "genetic inevitability" of the pair's attraction and lamented the "cruelty of fate" and "trauma of forced separation".

The tabloids screamed: "Are YOU one of the twins - or do you know them? Get in touch NOW on 020 ..."

Here's the thing: it all came from a single remark more than a month ago by the vehemently anti-abortion Roman Catholic peer and father of four, Lord Alton, in favour of all children having the right to know the identity of their biological parents.

He had heard about this particular case, he said, from the judge who handled the annulment. Or perhaps (he later admitted) a judge who was "familiar with the case". Britain's top family judge, Sir Mark Potter, has never heard of the story. And, as the excellent Heresy Corner blog notes, the whole thing is statistically improbable, procedurally implausible (for 40 years, adoption practice has been to keep twins together) and based on the equivalent of a friend in the pub saying, "Hey, I heard the most amazing story the other day."

Still, stranger things have happened.


LINK TO ARTICLE

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This story appeared a week ago in either The Seattle Times or Post-Intelligencer (we read both papers so we can't remember which one). But it was featured prominently on the second page. If this was a hoax, it worked! Sign us gullible.

Gershom Kaligawa said...

I bet the NCFA is behind this "False report claim"

T. Laurel Sulfate said...

There's nothing "unlikely" about genetic sexual attraction.

Anonymous said...

The original story first appeared in the London Evening Standard on the 11th January, I'm not sure when it was first suggested that it may not be true as I've only just seen that here

We don't have an NCFA presence in Great Britain as far as I know and doubt any organisations such BAAF here in England would be behind any hoax because they are pro open records both for adoption and in gamete donation

Twins vary often were still adopted separately 25 or 30 years ago in the UK and still were more recently, the UK is a comparatively small nation and adoption 25 years ago most commonly took place in the county of birth commonly within 40 miles (and still often does). People of similar education tend to educated in the same schools, siblings even when they have been separated tend to have similar interests and find themselves in similar employment. I find very easy to believe his story

I know from my own experience how easy it could be for adopted siblings here in the UK to form a relationship not knowing that they are siblings

I don't know what Alton's views on abortion are but that is not the issue that he was debating in the House of Lords. We currently have a bill on laws about in vitro fertilisation and gamete donation in Parliament, he seem pretty pro openness to me

I would suggest that it is the anti open records clique here that has come up with idea that his story is untrue

Certainly, there IS nothing unlikely about genetic attraction

Robin Harritt http://harritt.eu