Dutch judges yesterday ordered a man who was suspected of fathering no fewer than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating, in the latest fertility scandal to shock the Netherlands.
The 41-year-old man, who was only known as ‘Jonathan M.’ in the Dutch media, was sued in court by the mother of one of the children purportedly conceived using his sperm as well as a foundation defending the rights of donor children.
Despite the fact that judges determined the man had contributed to the conception of between 550 and 600 children since he began providing sperm in 2007, Dutch clinical guidelines state that a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families.
The court therefore ‘prohibits the defendant from donating his semen to new prospective parents after the issuing of this judgement’, judge Thera Hesselink said.
Jonathan M. may also not contact any prospective parents “with the wish that he was willing to donate semen… advertise his services to prospective parents or join any organisation that establishes contact between prospective parents”, Hesselink said in a written judgement.
Should he continue with his donations, he would face a 100,000-euro ($110,000) fine for every transgression, as well as additional fines, the judge ordered.
The mother of one of the children in the court case, identified only as ‘Eva’, said she was grateful that the court stopped the man from ‘mass donations that’s spread like wildfire to other countries’.
‘I’m asking the donor to respect our interests and to accept the verdict, because our children deserve to be left alone,’ she said in a statement.
Africa Today News, New York reports that more than 100 of Jonathan M.’s children were born in Dutch clinics and others privately, but he also donated semen to a Danish clinic named as Cryos in court papers, which then dispatched his seed to private addresses in various countries, the judge added.
‘The donor deliberately misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past,’ the Hague District Court said in a separate statement.
‘All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose,’ it said.
The court considered it “sufficiently plausible” that this has or could have negative psychosocial consequences for the children.
This included psychological problems around identity and fears of incest.