A Dutch man has been ordered by courts to stop donating sperm after alleged fathers of more than 550 children worldwide.
The 41-year-old man, dubbed Jonathan in the press, has been donating his sperm to fertility clinics since 2007, BBC News reported. In 2017, she was banned from donating to sperm clinics in the Netherlands after it was learned she had more than 100 children. But she continued to donate to clinics abroad, people she met through online advertising, and Dutch sperm banks that provide international services, according to the findings of a recent civil lawsuit.
While Jonathan’s lawyers said their client’s behavior stemmed from his desire to help people who want to have children, the court now considers these donations reasonably negative for families “who are faced with the fact that the children in the family are part of a large kinship network with hundreds of step-siblings they did not choose.” stressed that it could lead to consequences.
Guidelines in the Netherlands allow sperm donors to have a maximum of 25 children in no more than 12 families, but when donors are able to donate their sperm internationally, these numbers become harder to control. According to judges in a civil case brought by a foundation aimed at protecting the rights of children born to a donor, Jonathan has had between 550 and 600 children, and the judge said he “deliberately misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had fathered in the past.”
The man is now banned from having any more children through sperm donation, and it was announced that he would potentially face a fine of 100,000 euros per violation.
Jonathan is not alone in this
Interestingly, there have been a surprising number of similar cases in the Netherlands in recent years. Another prolific sperm donor known as Louis has fathered more than 200 children through sperm donation, especially in the hopes that one of his children will find it if he donates enough of his sperm.
“If I had 10 children like this, my chances of success would be very low,” he told The Guardian in 2018, adding: “What if I had 100… or more?”
DNA analysis in 2019 found that fertility doctor Jan Karbaat, through his job at a Rotterdam Clinic, secretly fathered at least 49 children using his own sperm instead of donor sperm. Although he died at the age of 89 in 2017, the total number is believed to be as high as 60.
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