A Dutch court on Friday banned any future donation of sperm to the father of at least 550 children, who risks paying €100,000 each time he breaks the ban.
• Also read: A lawsuit has been filed against a sperm donor who fathered at least 550 children
One more and the fondation Donorkind (“Enfant of Donneur”) avaient engage a procédure en référé contre le “donneur en masse” — Jonathan Jacob Meije, 41 ans, selon les medias néerlandais — constatant qu’il continuait de chercher de future parents sur social networks.
Donorkind says the plaintiff found the man in 2018 via a dating platform, in which he promised to father a maximum of 25 children, according to Dutch clinics’ guidelines to avoid consanguinity, incest and psychological problems for donor children.
The donor had already fathered 100 children in Dutch clinics alone at the time, as well as an unknown number privately and via a Danish clinic that sent his semen to private addresses in different countries, AFP read in the ruling.
Donor since 2007, he has fathered no less than 550 to 600 children.
The court found it “reasonable enough” that this could have or could have negative psychological and social consequences for the children, citing psychological issues of identity and fears of incest.
“It is therefore in their interest that this kinship network not extend further,” she asserts in a press release from The Hague District Court, which prohibits a man from “donating his sperm to new parents in the future.”
The latter, who has donated his sperm to at least 12 clinics, risks paying 100,000 euros if he breaks the ban.
“The donor intentionally misled the intended parents about the number of children he had fathered in the past,” the court added. He continued that they now face the fact that their children are “part of a vast network of relatives, with hundreds of half-siblings, whom they did not choose.”
Jonathan M. is also prohibited from communicating online with new fathers-to-be about his or her desire to donate sperm to them.
The case is the latest in a series of fertility scandals to hit the Netherlands. In 2020, a gynecologist was posthumously accused of fathering at least 17 children with women believed to have received sperm from anonymous donors.
