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A sperm donor in the Netherlands, linked to more than 550 children fathered by sperm donation in at least 13 Dutch and foreign clinics, will be taken to court by one of the inseminated mothers and by the Donorkind Foundation, which defends the interests of people born by this method.

The foundation itself announced that it will initiate legal proceedings to try to stop the behavior of this 41-year-old Dutch donor, accused of deceiving women around the world, by having lied and minimized the number of times he had donated his sperm, since Donorkind counts that he has helped father more than 500 children.

The donor has delivered his sperm to at least 13 clinics in the Netherlands and abroad, and "also reaches out to expectant parents looking for a donor for insemination at home through meeting platforms and social media, and lies about the number of children he has had," the foundation notes.

Clinic guidelines require a sperm donor to do so a maximum of 25 times successfully or help 12 families in total, to avoid inbreeding, incest and psychological problems of people born by this method.

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"Now that this man has indicated to mothers that he does not want to stop his behavior and has recently approached new parents-to-be, he is asked to ban him under sanction from new donations, to be required not to contact new parents, and to write to clinics to ask for the destruction of his stored sperm," he is asked to be banned." warns Donorkind.

Eva, the mother who now initiates the complaint in court against this subject, assures that he had promised not to father more than 25 children, when she chose him as her donor in 2018.

"If I had known that I had already had more than a hundred children, I would never have chosen him. When I think about the consequences that this could have for my son, I am left with a bad body and I am uncertain about his future: how many more children will there be? In conversations with the donor, many mothers have asked him to stop, but nothing helps," says Eva.

His lawyer, Mark de Hek, warns that the donor is acting illegally "by putting his reproductive impulse first" and recalls that "this behavior is dangerous to the mental well-being and health of children born by donation."

The Dutch gynaecologists' association NVOG first warned in 2017 about this man, a musician, when it emerged that he had fathered at least 102 children in the Netherlands through 10 different clinics.

The donor was blacklisted in Dutch clinics, but continued to donate in other countries, such as Denmark and Ukraine.

It is unclear when the case will be heard in the Dutch Courts, but Donorkind hopes to have more details "in the coming weeks."

In addition to this case, the foundation has already identified at least ten Dutch gynaecologists who have used their own semen without the knowledge of women who wanted to become pregnant in fertility clinics in the Netherlands.

At the same time, a record 1,415 people born by sperm donation sought genetic information about their biological father in 2021, after these scandals became public.

According to The Trust Project criteria

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  • Netherlands
  • Fertility