A 27-year-old man, resident of Mumbai, has said he is going to drag his parents to court — for giving birth to him without his consent.
As children are powerless to decide whether to come into this world or not, the parents should support them for life, says Raphael Samuel in a viral YouTube video. His protest is about procreation, which puts a strain on Earth and skews ecological balance, he says.
“I want everyone in India and the world to realise that they are brought in this world without their consent ....they do not owe their parents anything and if we are born without our consent, we should be maintained for our life. We should be paid by our parents to live,” he says in the video.
He has not elaborated on which court he plans to move. Raphael’s parents are lawyers, and he says he shares a cordial relationship with them. “I have got their full support. But I know they will have a different view-point in court. But try to understand that the issue which I am raising is vast. Besides, it has few objectives such as controlling the population, maintaining ecological balance,” he told reporters.
Wearing sunglasses and fake beard and moustache in the video, Raphael says, “Do not do anything for your parents if you do not want to....if you truly genuinely feel like doing it, do it. Parents should not treat their children like investments or insurance policies.”
He concedes that it is impossible to ask a child for his or her consent before being born. “What I mean by no-consent is you do not owe your parents anything because it was not your decision. You were born because your parents had some good time at some point. Something you cannot be responsible for,” he says.
He has also written a Facebook post on the issue. Some comments on the post advised him to visit a mental hospital. “The wrong sperm won,” says one pithy comment. His mother, Kavita Karnad Samuel, took a lawyerly approach.
On Raphael’s Facebook wall, Kavita 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.”
