Serial sperm donor reported in Holland: “He has more than 550 children”

More than 550 babies were allegedly born in over 13 Dutch clinics and also abroad from a sperm donor serial which has now been sued by a mother and the Donorkind Foundation. It is a 41-year-old Dutch musician Jonathan Meijer, who, according to the indictment, deceived women, families and clinics across the world.

National guidelines in the Netherlands put 25 as the maximum births from a single individual’s donation. In Italy the maximum number is 10. Such low numbers are due to safety rules. There is a risk, with high numbers, that the people born from these donations meet and, without knowing they are related, reproduce exposing their children to diseases or genetic anomalies. In addition to this there are the psychological consequences of finding close relatives everywhere, perhaps taking the increasingly common DNA tests.

The 41-year-old would have donated through clinics, but also independently on the Internet, through unregulated channels. The Donorkind Foundation, which filed the lawsuit, brings together families who have resorted to heterologous fertilization. The lawsuit is the first filed of its kind even though there is a history of serial sperm donor. The request is to block the man’s donations and not to use any sperm left in the clinics, but also to destroy it unless those who used it ask to keep it.

The woman who denounced him explained: «If I had known that he had already had more than 100 children I would never have chosen him. I’m sick at the thought of the consequences that could be for my son.

Already in 2017 an investigation by the Dutch Ministry of Health had discovered that the man was the biological father of over 100 children. The guidelines that indicate the number of children at 25 are not binding and therefore he had managed not to have legal action even though the man had lied by telling 10 different clinics that he had never donated to others. At the time he had been reported to the Dutch clinics, but his international activity had not stopped. There is no sperm donor registry in the world and there are many sites that do not follow official and regulated paths.

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