{"id":13810,"date":"2019-02-07T08:52:06","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T13:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=13810"},"modified":"2019-02-07T08:58:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T13:58:02","slug":"india-man-to-sue-parents-for-giving-birth-to-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/02\/07\/india-man-to-sue-parents-for-giving-birth-to-him\/","title":{"rendered":"India man to sue parents for giving birth to him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A 27-year-old Indian man plans to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent.<\/p>\n<p>Mumbai businessman Raphael Samuel told the BBC that it&#8217;s wrong to bring children into the world because they then have to put up with lifelong suffering.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Samuel, of course, understands that our consent can&#8217;t be sought before we are born, but insists that &#8220;it was not our decision to be born&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>So as we didn&#8217;t ask to be born, we should be paid for the rest of our lives to live, he argues.<\/p>\n<p>A demand like this could cause a rift within any family, but Mr Samuel says he gets along very well with his parents (both of whom are lawyers) and they appear to be dealing with it with a lot of humour.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, his mother Kavita Karnad Samuel explained her response to &#8220;the recent upheaval my son has created&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I must admire my son&#8217;s temerity to want to take his parents to court knowing both of us are lawyers. And 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,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Samuel&#8217;s belief is rooted in what&#8217;s called anti-natalism &#8211; a philosophy that argues that life is so full of misery that people should stop procreating immediately.<\/p>\n<p>This, he says, would gradually phase out humanity from the Earth and that would also be so much better for the planet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no point to humanity. So many people are suffering. If humanity is extinct, Earth and animals would be happier. They&#8217;ll certainly be better off. Also no human will then suffer. Human existence is totally pointless.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A year ago, he created a Facebook page, Nihilanand, which features posters that show his images with a huge fake beard, an eye-mask and anti-natalist messages like &#8220;Isn&#8217;t forcing a child into this world and forcing it to have a career, kidnapping, and slavery?&#8221; Or, &#8220;Your parents had you instead of a toy or a dog, you owe them nothing, you are their entertainment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Samuel says he remembers first having anti-natalist thoughts when he was five.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was a normal kid. One day I was very frustrated and I didn&#8217;t want to go to school but my parents kept asking me to go. So I asked them: &#8216;Why did you have me?&#8217; And my dad had no answer. I think if he&#8217;d been able to answer, maybe I wouldn&#8217;t have thought this way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As the idea grew and took shape in his mind, he decided to tell his parents about it. He says his mum reacted &#8220;very well&#8221; and dad too &#8220;is warming up&#8221; to the idea.<\/p>\n<p>As the idea grew and took shape in his mind, he decided to tell his parents about it. He says his mum reacted &#8220;very well&#8221; and dad too &#8220;is warming up&#8221; to the idea.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/10580\/production\/_105544966_nihilanand2.jpg\" alt=\"Image from Nihilanand Facebook page saying you owe your parents nothing\" width=\"976\" height=\"900\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mum said she wished she had met me before I was born and that if she did, she definitely wouldn&#8217;t have had me,&#8221; he says laughing and adds that she does see reason in his argument.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She told me that she was quite young when she had me and that she didn&#8217;t know she had another option. But that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m trying to say &#8211; everyone has the option.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In her statement, his mother also said it was unfair to focus on a &#8220;sliver of what he believes in&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His belief in anti-natalism, his concern for the burden on Earth&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very happy that my son has grown up into a fearless, independent-thinking young man. He is sure to find his path to happiness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Samuel says his decision to take his parents to court is only based on his belief that the world would be a much better place without human beings in it.<\/p>\n<p>So six months ago, one day at breakfast, he told his mother that he was planning to sue her. &#8220;She said that&#8217;s fine, but don&#8217;t expect me to go easy on you. I will destroy you in court.&#8221; Mr Samuel is now looking for a lawyer to take up his case, but so far he&#8217;s not had much success.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/153A0\/production\/_105544968_guyinabra.jpg\" alt=\"Image from Nihilanand Facebook page on parents being the definition of entitled\" width=\"976\" height=\"650\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know it&#8217;s going to be thrown out because no judge would hear it. But I do want to file a case because I want to make a point.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His Facebook posts have also attracted a lot of responses, &#8220;some positive, but mostly negative&#8221; with some even advising him to &#8220;go kill yourself&#8221;. He has also had worried mums asking him what would happen if their children see his posts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some argue logically, some are offended and some are offensive. To those abusing me, let them abuse me. But I also hear from many who say they support me but can&#8217;t say this publicly for whatever reasons. I ask them to come out and speak up,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>His critics also say that he&#8217;s doing this to get some publicity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not really doing this for publicity,&#8221; he says, &#8220;but I do want the idea to go public. This simple idea that it&#8217;s okay to not have a child.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I ask him if he is unhappy being born.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wish I was not born. But it&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m unhappy in my life. My life is good, but I&#8217;d rather not be here. You know it&#8217;s like there&#8217;s a nice room, but I don&#8217;t want to be in that room,&#8221; he explains.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-india-47154287\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A 27-year-old Indian man plans to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. Mumbai businessman Raphael Samuel told the BBC that it&#8217;s wrong to bring children into the world because they <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/02\/07\/india-man-to-sue-parents-for-giving-birth-to-him\/\" title=\"India man to sue parents for giving birth to him\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,14,6],"tags":[236,5963],"class_list":{"0":"post-13810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"category-strange-news","10":"category-world","11":"tag-india","12":"tag-nihilanand","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13812,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13810\/revisions\/13812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}