The Man Suing His Parents For Conceiving Him Without His Consent

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Mumbai man Raphael Samuel is suing his own parents. They conceived him and gave birth to him without his consent, and he resents it. There are so many obvious flaws in his thinking that his case really ought to be thrown out of court. He is unlikely to win his case as both of his parents are professional lawyers themselves. If his grandparents are still alive, surely he should sue them too. Until the advent of time travel, getting consent from our offspring before procreation spawns them is impossible. If we all subscribed to this philosophy we would be extinct as a species within a generation. Many commentators say to Samuel that if he hates life so much he should just commit suicide. This is not trolling him, but a fairly inevitable consequence of his philosophy. He considers suicide a sin though. If gods come into the discussion, then clearly the blame for life lies with them, but suing them might prove even more of a challenge than wasting court time on such anti-parent crusades. I don’t personally have or want children. I think the World is a messy cruel place and climate change could create great horror in the next few generations. On a selfish level, the noise and distraction of child raising would drive me to depair. I do not go from my personal preference not to have offspring to telling others they should not have kids. I would not dream of suing my mother (or my deceased father). Though my life has been through turbulent times, overall I have enjoyed being alive. It is a unique experience, one I’ll never have again, and I intend to make the most of it. If anything I’d like to sue Death for his threat to take it all off me one day, Many have dreadful lives of course, being born into poverty, hunger, slavery, war, etc. It is a lottery where we end up being in life but the idea of making things worse by turning against our family, neighbours and community solves nothing. Samuel has a strong internet presence, promoting a philosophy of anti-natalism, which has quite a lot of adherents. He makes Youtubes in a ridiculous fake guru beard and dark glasses under the name Nihil Anand. His plans to sue his parents has put the obscure philosophy centre stage with Samuel having a potential to be a real cult-leader, which strikes me as being his real intention in his very public stance. Though his view seems jaded, he seems to revel and relish his new notoriety. Such a pessimistic, nihilistic view of life is not new. Buddha said that for many suffering was so bad that they would have been happier unborn. The concept of original sin in Judaeo-Christianity has children born inherently wicked with a need to be religious or carry their suffering on into the afterlife (Hell). Celibacy and chastity has often been used as a means to spare children from such dangers. All animal life spawns offspring without consent. The most typical pattern sees the parents nurture and educate the cub, baby chick, etc, until it matures enough to fly from the nest, hunt alone, and find its own mate. The sons and daughters may or may not maintain support and protection for the host-parents. Humans today have the luxury of a wide range of choices. Contraception, vasectomies, or chastity enable more sexual freedom with reduced risk of creating offspring, though accidents can and do occur even there. For some potential parents, abortion-termination may be an option even then. It might be argued that many potential parents who have not had babies should be sued by the never-conceived for robbing them of their shot at life without their consent. The next Mozart or someone who might have the power to cure cancer might be doomed to never be born. No doubt his efforts to sue over it would be just as absurd as the stance taken by Samuel and other anti-natalists. Youtube – Samuel promoting his stance Arthur Chappell