At 27 years old, Raphael Samuel, a businessman from Mumbai, India, stunned the internet with a philosophical stand that has drawn global attention and intense debate.

Rather than chasing a typical career, Raphael publicly declared he would not work in the conventional sense and even threatened to sue his parents because he was brought into the world without his consent.

His case has become one of the most unusual expressions of a controversial worldview known as anti-natalism; the belief that births should be minimized because life inevitably involves suffering.

The story first broke when Raphael shared a YouTube video explaining his stance: if humans are born without ever agreeing to exist, he said, they shouldn’t be obligated to work or contribute to systems that assume consent to life and labour.

“I want everyone in the world to realize that they are born without their consent,” he said in the viral video. “We do not owe our parents anything. If we are born without our consent, we should be maintained for our life.”

Raphael’s views are rooted in anti-natalism, a philosophy that questions the morality of procreation. Anti-natalists argue that bringing a person into a world filled with pain, hardship, and inequality cannot be justified if the individual never agreed to be born in the first place.

Raphael has taken this idea further by suggesting that parents owe their children lifelong support, a notion most critics say is unrealistic and legally unfounded.

In interviews with various news outlets, Raphael admitted he knows it is impossible to obtain consent from someone who hasn’t yet been conceived.

Still, he said that acknowledging this lack of consent is essential if society is ever to rethink assumptions about life, purpose, and responsibility.

His message has been polarizing. Some people online applaud his courage to raise existential questions rarely asked publicly, while others dismiss his arguments as impractical or self-indulgent.

Despite the intensity of the debates sparked by his statements, Raphael has also emphasized that his intent isn’t to harm his parents or attack his relationship with them.

In previous interviews, his mother, who is a lawyer like his father, responded with disbelief. She reportedly said she would accept fault if anyone could explain how she could have asked for his consent before he was born, an admission that highlights the philosophical, rather than legal, nature of Raphael’s protest.