Sperm donor who fathered 550 children ordered to stop

A 41-year-old man named Jonathan from the Netherlands has been ordered to stop donating sperm, as he is suspected of fathering more than 550 children worldwide through sperm donations. The man was banned from donating to fertility clinics in the Netherlands in 2017 after it was discovered that he had fathered more than 100 children.

Despite the ban, he continued to donate sperm abroad and online. The court in The Hague has instructed him to provide a list of all the clinics he used and to order them to destroy his sperm. He was taken to court by a foundation protecting donor children’s rights, and by the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered by his sperm. Dutch clinical guidelines state that a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families.

The man misled hundreds of women and helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he began donating sperm in 2007. Some of the children were born in Dutch clinics, but he also donated to a Danish clinic which dispatched his semen to addresses in various countries. The court has said that the kinship network with hundreds of half-siblings is too large. If he tries to donate again, he could be fined more than €100,000 (£88,000).

The court in The Hague has prohibited the Dutch man, Jonathan, suspected of fathering over 550 children through sperm donations, from donating his semen to new prospective parents. The judge has also barred him from advertising his services to prospective parents, joining any organization that establishes contact between prospective parents, or contacting any prospective parents to offer his services. The court found that the donor deliberately misled prospective parents about the number of children he had fathered in the past.

This has resulted in the children being part of a huge kinship network, which could have negative psychosocial consequences for them. Sperm donors are advised to limit the number of times they offer their services to avoid the possibility of siblings forming a couple and having children together unknowingly.

In the past, the Netherlands has experienced fertility scandals, such as a Dutch fertility doctor who was found to have used his own sperm to inseminate patients without their consent, resulting in him being confirmed as the father of 49 children.

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