Spanish half-siblings with two kids fighting for right to marry

Half-siblings in Spain who have two children together are fighting for the right to get married, saying “society must advance”.

Two half-siblings in Spain who have two children together are fighting for the right to get married.

Ana Parra, whose father abandoned her when she was a child, always knew that she had a half-brother – but didn’t meet him until she was 20 years old.

“My mother told me that my father had left us to start another family and that he had had another child,” Ms Parra told media in Barcelona.

Her half-brother, Daniel Parra, added: “Someone had told me that maybe I had a sister out there, but my father never told me. It was something he wanted to hide.”

Ms Parra tracked her half-brother down on Facebook. They eventually met, and could not help feeling attracted to one another.

“We didn’t want to realise it,” she said. “We were angry with ourselves because it was hard to admit and break that taboo: We are siblings even though we didn’t feel that way.”

Daniel and Ana Parra, two half-siblings from Spain. Picture: Newsflash/Australscope

Recalling their first kiss, she said they were out partying.

“We approached each other slowly and gave each other our first kiss.”

Afterwards, “we went our separate ways”.

“We were somewhat ashamed of what had just happened.”

But Mr Parra said, “That kiss broke all barriers, marked a before and after. It was like a reality check.”

After just a few days, the half-siblings realised that they could not carry on without seeing each other again.

“Imagine liking a girl and, for a moral reason, being forbidden to be with her. It’s really hard to deal with,” Mr Parra said.

They started spending time together without revealing that they were romantically involved.

‘We love each other and that is what should prevail. We are not harming anyone.’ Picture: Newsflash/Australscope

It was only after a trip to London – where they could behave like a normal couple – that they decided to go public with their relationship.

“That was the first time we can say that we behaved, in public, like a real couple,” Ms Parra said of the holiday.

“We went out to dinner, we took walks. It was like an explosion of freedom.”

The couple ultimately decided to share that they were together in a televised interview.

“We didn’t feel like telling everyone our story one by one, so that’s why we decided to tell it this way,” Ms Parra said.

But they were quickly met with a deluge of criticism online.

“There are people who have written to us on social media telling us that we’re going to burn in hell,” she said.

The couple have two children, aged five and three. Picture: Newsflash/Australscope

But the backlash did not deter the couple – who now have two children, aged five and three.

The children know their parents are half-siblings, “although they’re still very young and don’t understand,” Ms Parra said.

Despite the higher risk of being born with some kind of recessive disease due to their parents being genetically related, both children are “perfectly healthy”, they said.

Although consensual incest is not a crime in Spain, the Spanish Civil Code prohibits marriage between direct relatives. The couple are now fighting to be able to tie the knot in their own country.

“Societies must advance and not cling to traditionalism. Homosexuals were also not allowed to marry and now they can,” Ms Parra said.

“We love each other and that is what should prevail. We are not harming anyone. That is why we want people to know our story.”