Faced with the risk of psychological disorders, incest and consanguinity, Dutch law limits the number of sperm donations to 25.
- A Dutch donor fathered more than 550 children.
- Two complaints have been filed against him, by a foundation and by a victim.
- In the Netherlands, a sperm donor cannot donate more than 25 times in his lifetime.
Jonathan Jacob Meijer was on the donor blacklist in the Netherlands. Yet he continued to donate his sperm, including illegally. In total, the 41-year-old Dutchman fathered more than 550 children, in several countries. Today, he is the subject of legal proceedings. “Dutch Donorkind Foundation is suing Jonathan Jacob Meijer to stop him from donating sperm, accusing him of lying about the number of children he fathered“, explain The Telegraph.
“Serial donor” : partly illegal sperm donation in the Netherlands and abroad
As early as 2017, an association of Dutch gynecologists had alerted to the case of this man: with his donations, he had already contributed to the birth of 102 children, in ten clinics in the country. Qualified for “serial donor”, the man could no longer donate his sperm in the Netherlands, given his placement on the blacklist, but he would have continued to do so in particular in Ukraine and Denmark. According to the Donorkind foundation, he approached people looking for a donor on social networks and on the Internet, to offer them donations.
The Donorkind foundation asks that donations be prohibited and that the clinics that have received their donations be listed. It also requires that the sperm samples still stored be destroyed, unless they are used by women who have already had a child thanks to its donations. “We are taking action against this man because the government is not doing anything, Donorkind spokesman Ties van der Meer told the Telegram. He can act anywhere in the world thanks to the Internet and he does business with major international sperm banks.”
Sperm donation: what are the rules for donors?
In the Netherlands, a donor cannot donate more than 25 times his sperm to more than 12 women. This legislation aims to limit the risk of consanguinity, psychological disorders and incest. In France, thebiomedicine agency indicates that “IThe law specifies that the use of gamete donation from the same donor cannot lead to the birth of more than 10 children, in order to reduce the risk of consanguineous pairings..
“When I think about the potential consequences for my child, it makes me sick.” says Eva, one of the female victims at the Telegraph, and mother of a child born in 2018 thanks to a sperm donation from this donor. She filed a complaint against Jonathan Jacob Meijer, after discovering the profile of this donor. “If I had known he had already fathered over 100 children, I would never have chosen him.”
