Patrick Stuebing

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Patrick Stuebing is a man living in Leipzig, Germany, who has recently been the centre of a heated debate around incest, due to his relationship with his biological sister, Susan Karolewski, since 2001. The relationship has so far spawned four children of whom only one, Sofia, remains with the couple.

Patrick, an unemployed locksmith, was adopted and, as a child, lived in Potsdam. He did not meet his mother and biological family until he was 23. Today he and Susan share a small flat in an east German tower block on the outskirts of Leipzig.

Incest is a criminal offence in Germany. Patrick Stuebing has already served a two-year sentence for committing incest and there is another jail term looming if paragraph 173 of the legal code is not overturned. Under Germany's criminal code, which dates back to 1871, it is a crime for close relatives to have sex, punishable by up to three years in prison: disabilities caused by inbreeding are viewed as deliberately inflicted bodily injury to the child. The couple's lawyer has argued that the law is "out of date" and "breaches the couple's civil rights".

In 2004, Patrick voluntarily underwent a vasectomy.


The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld, on March 13, 2008, a law that makes incest a criminal offense, rejecting the appeal by Stuebing.

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