At least 85 sperm donors shared their semen in a “massive” way since 2004 in different fertility clinics in the Netherlands, announced the Association of Dutch Gynecologists (NVOG), which means that each of these donors has had more than 25 children for donation, against the rules.
A new law, in force since April 1, shows more clearly how fertility clinics handled the sperm donated in the last 20 years, and, according to the available data, there is a minimum of 85 “massive donors”, a qualifier used for those who have successfully donated their sperm more than 25 times, NVOG assured the Nieuwsuur Dutch public channel.
Most have between 26 and 40 children, but there are some with up to 50 or 75 descendants. Only the famous donor Jonathan Meijer, 43, has hundreds of children, at least 550, according to himself he admitted.
Two years ago, Meijer faced a lawsuit from the parents of many of those children, and the court ordered him to stop providing his semen to future parents to protect the children from the “negative psychosocial consequences” that he has “hundreds of media brothers who did not choose”, and imposed a fine of 100,000 euros for each new son that was born.
The rule of maximum 25 children per donor exists since the 1990s, but in practice, there were many errors, donors were recorded in several clinics and many more children were procreated with the same sperm because there was no national alert system, which has resulted in numerous scandals of mass donation of semen in the Netherlands.
Many clinics used the same sperm on purpose and without permission from mothers, and others exchange semen with other clinics without knowledge of the donor and without registering it well.
In 2018, the NVOG changed the amount allowed to twelve children, and since April 1, donors and mothers are registered nationwide, not by clinic, and this is also applied retroactively since 2004, because that year anonymous donations were prohibited.
“We are talking about about 3,000 children, with more than 25 half brothers and sisters,” said Ties Van der Meer, of the Donorkind Foundation, which defends the rights of children born by donation.
“The number of massive donors should have been zero”
The NVOG asks mothers, children born by donation and donors to contact the clinic where treatment took place if they want more information. “The number of massive donors should have been zero,” said Gynecologist Marieke Schoonenberg, of the NVOG, who asked “apologies as a professional group because things did not do well.”
“They will never be able to have quotes quietly. If they fall in love with someone, they will always have to do a DNA test” to make sure they are not half brothers, said Van der Meer, as an example about the consequences that this situation has on the children born by donation.
In recent years, several scandals on fertility treatments that date back to 2004. At least ten gynecologists used their own semen without knowledge of women who wanted to become pregnant in their fertility clinics. One of them is Jan Karbaat, with 81 confirmed children. Or the gynecologist Jan Wildschut, who engendered at least 47 children.
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