Man wants to sue his parents for giving birth to him 'without his consent'
A young man has caused a stir after announcing he wants to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his permission.
A YouTube video titled, “WHY am I suing my parents?” by Raphael Samuel, a 27-year-old from Mumbai, India, has been viewed more than 100,000 times in two days.
Mr Samuel, who is a self-proclaimed “anti-natalist”, is wearing a fake beard and sunglasses in the clip as he answers a number of questions.
“I want everyone in India and also the world to realise one thing – that they are born without their consent,” Mr Samuel says in the video.
“I want them to understand that they do not owe their parents anything.”
“If we are born without our consent, then we should be maintained for the rest of our life. We should be paid to live,” he adds.
According to the Times of India, the concept of anti-natalism “assigns negative value to birth” and those who follow the philosophy argue that people should not procreate as it is morally wrong.
Mr Samuel explains in the video what he means by coming into the world “without his consent”.
“Basically none of us have consented to be here – we just came here and we came by our parents’ discretion,” he said.
He does acknowledge it is not possible to ask an unborn child for consent.
“So all I mean by no consent is that you realise that you are here and you do not owe your parents anything and it was not your decision,” Mr Samuel adds.
“Something that is not your decision you cannot be responsible for and therefore you do not have to be responsible to your parents.”
Later in the video he tells parents that their children are individuals rather than their investments.
“My simple message is that neither do you own your children, neither do your children owe you,” he says.
The 27-year-old has received plenty of backlash about his ideas.
“How can they ask you for permission to be born when you haven’t been born, just grow up,” one Facebook user wrote.
“Talk about entitlement issues!! Your way of thinking is beyond absurd,” a second commented.
“Though I don’t support your philosophy of parents seeking permission from child to give birth, I fully support the idea of less human beings on the planet,” another wrote.
His mother also responded to his stance in a message which Mr Samuel shared on Facebook, saying that she is happy her son has grown up into a “fearless, independent thinking young man.”
“I must admire my son’s temerity to want to take his parents to court knowing both of us are lawyers,” she wrote.
“If Raphael could come up with a rational explanation as to how we could have sought his consent to be born, I will accept my fault.”
She added: “His belief in anti natalism, his concern for the burden on Earth’s resources due to needless life, his sensitivity toward the pain experienced unwittingly by children while growing up and so much more has been ruefully forgotten.”
