I’ve watched in disbelief as this story has circulated on respectable news sites for the past 48 hours.

This isn’t Remy in a two-dollar fake beard putting on an accent to lampoon pro-choice and environmentalist extremism?

It’s a goof on the concept of welfare too. Why should you need to be unwilling to work to receive “economic justice” from your parents, asks “Raphael Samuel”? Birth without your consent should suffice to make a claim.

[A]s we didn’t ask to be born, we should be paid for the rest of our lives to live, he argues…

Mr Samuel’s belief is rooted in what’s called anti-natalism – a philosophy that argues that life is so full of misery that people should stop procreating immediately.

This, he says, would gradually phase out humanity from the Earth and that would also be so much better for the planet…

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 “Isn’t forcing a child into this world and forcing it to have a career, kidnapping, and slavery?” Or, “Your parents had you instead of a toy or a dog, you owe them nothing, you are their entertainment.”

That’s one thing that gives me pause. If it’s a prank, given the number of posts on his Facebook page, you’d expect him to have tired of this prank long ago. Maybe “performance art” is a better term, although if so, it’s performance art leavened with humor. Does a man who posts meme-ready photos with slogans like “Having a baby is a threesome without the consent of one — the baby” seem like he’s fully on the level? This reeks of a guy eager to build an Internet following who’s found a gimmick that cleverly walks the line between total absurdity and a vaguely plausible if radical strain of more mainstream political beliefs.

That’s the other part that gives me pause. There *is* genuine anti-natalist sentiment underpinning hardcore global-warming alarmism and of course abortion, with our very “progressive” friends having now pushed the cut-off for termination up to the moment of birth or even beyond. Is it unimaginable that someone would take the moral logic of abortion rights, which privileges choice above life, and invert it by insisting that a parent’s decision to give life to a child without allowing it to choose should be actionable in court?

Nah, c’mon. It’s a prank. But he’s worked hard for his Internet 15 minutes, so fine. Here’s a little extra free exposure from me.