- By Emily McGarvey
- BBC News
image source, Good pictures
Frozen storage in a sperm bank
A Dutch man suspected of fathering more than 550 children worldwide through sperm donation has been ordered to stop.
Jonathan, 41, could be fined €100,000 (£88,000) if he tries to donate again.
In 2017 she was banned from donating to fertility clinics in the Netherlands.
But instead of calling it quits, he donated sperm abroad and online.
The court in The Hague ordered him to provide a list of all the clinics he used and to order his sperm destroyed.
The man allegedly misled hundreds of women.
Dutch medical guidelines state that a single donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families.
But since he started donating sperm in 2007, he has helped produce between 550 and 600 children, the judges said.
She was taken to court by a foundation that protects the rights of donor children.
“This network of kinship is very large, with hundreds of half-brothers and half-sisters,” said Gerd-Marc Semmelt, a spokesman for the court.
More than 100 children fathered by the man were born in Dutch clinics and others privately, but he donated to a Danish clinic, which sent his sperm to addresses in various countries.
Judge Tera Hesslink said, “After this ruling, the court prohibits the defendant from donating his sperm to new prospective parents.”
The judge said he is not allowed to contact any prospective parents “with a desire to donate sperm…advertise his services to prospective parents or join an organization that facilitates contact between prospective parents”.
The district court in The Hague said the donor had “deliberately misinformed” prospective parents about the number of children she had had in the past.
“All of these parents now find that the children in their families are part of a large kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, that they did not choose,” it said.
The court said it is “sufficiently credible” that it causes or is likely to cause negative psychological effects on children.
Sperm donors are told to limit the number of times they offer their services to reduce the chance of siblings unknowingly pairing up and having children.
The Netherlands has been plagued by fertility scandals in the past.
