In recent years a new “I wish I'd never been born” movement has been emerging in different parts of the world. Just this past February (2020) a 27-year-old Indian man named Raphael Samuel announced he was suing his parents for birthing him. He said, “It was not our decision to be born. Human existence is totally pointless.”

The philosophy began in 2006 with South African philosopher David Benatar and his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. He asserts: “Life is a procession of frustrations and irritations. Many lonely people remain single, while those who marry fight and divorce. People want to be, look, and feel younger, and yet they age relentlessly.” He quotes Ecclesiastes 4:3 as well as the Greek tragedian Sophocles: “Never to have been born is best / But if we must see the light, the next best / Is quickly returning whence we came”

Benatar writes that having children is “intrinsically cruel and irresponsible.” People who decide not to procreate are expressing compassion:

While good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This same worldly despair of life is found in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. It is only through a life changing relationship with Christ that meaning for life is truly found.

Source:

Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow “I wish I'd never been born: the rise of the anti-natalists,” The Guardian (11-14-19); David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford Presss, 2008), p. 18.