 In 2004, Patrick Stübing 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 Stübing.On 12 April 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Stübing's "conviction and prison sentence for an incestuous relationship" did not violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to respect for private and family life), as "the German authorities had a wide margin of appreciation in confronting the issue".