A Dutch court ordered a man who had fathered between 500 and 600 children around the world to stop donating sperm. The verdict came out on Friday.
The court has forbidden the 41-year-old Dutchman named Jonathan Meijer to donate more semen to clinics, according to the ruling. Additionally, he should pay a fine of 100,000 euros ($110,000) per infraction. An order states Meijer to write to clinics abroad asking them to destroy any of the semen they have in stock. This excludes doses reserved for parents who already had children by him.
Fertility clinics in the Netherlands blacklisted him in 2017. This was after it came to light that he had fathered more than 100 children. Dutch clinical guidelines state that a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families. But he continued donating sperm abroad and online.
The shocking actions came to light after a foundation and the mother of one of the children filed a lawsuit against him in Hague.
The Statements
“The donor deliberately misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past,” the district court in The Hague said.
“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 point is that this kinship network with hundreds of half-brothers and half-sisters is much too large,” court spokesperson Gert-Mark Smelt told AFP.
He said that the court has forbidden the gentleman to give further semen because it considered that the interests of the children weighed too heavily.
The man is also not permitted to 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”, the judge said.
Mark de Hek, one of the lawyers in the case, said: “It is the first time that a judge has ruled on such a case and it is encouraging to see this behaviour immediately dealt with.”