A Dutch court on Friday banned a "mass donor", the parent of at least 550 children, from donating his sperm to future parents, in a new scandal related to fertility issues that shocks the Netherlands. The man, identified by local media as Jonathan M., 41, risks having to pay 100,000 euros each time he violates the ban.
A mother and the Donorkind Foundation ("Donor Child") had filed summary proceedings against him last month, noting that he continued to search for future parents on social networks. Identified only as "Eva," the plaintiff mother said she was grateful to the court for preventing the man from "making mass donations, which spread like wildfire to other countries." "I ask the donor to respect our interests and accept the verdict," she said in a statement.
A "restriction of physical freedom and contact"?
According to Donorkind, Eva found the man in 2018 via a dating platform, on which he promised to father up to 25 children, in line with Dutch clinics' guidelines to avoid inbreeding, incest and psychological problems for donor children. The man had actually fathered 100 children in Dutch clinics alone at the time, plus a number unknown in the private sphere and via a Danish clinic that sent his seed to private addresses in various countries. "Such a restriction of physical freedom and contact, as stated by the court, seems to me to have no place in a free society like the Netherlands," he wrote to the channel.
The Hague court said it was "sufficiently plausible" that the expansion of the huge kinship network would have negative psychosocial consequences for children, citing psychological problems around identity and fears of incest. Nevertheless, Jonathan M. can still donate to parents who already have a child by him and want another, according to local media.
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