Sperm donors with hundreds of children 'just want to help'

In the Netherlands, fertility clinics guarantee that a sperm donor will donate to a maximum of twelve women. Yet a handful of men manage to produce hundreds of children worldwide with their semen. For these 'super spreaders', sperm donation is a lifestyle. Although clinics unofficially maintain a blacklist, they do not hinder these mass donors. "They were thrilled with every healthy donor."

In 2017 Anneke will receive an unexpected phone call: the doctor who had helped her conceive through a donor eight years earlier is on the line. The doctor tells her that her donor is Jonathan, who is in the news at the time because he had produced as many as 102 children through sperm donations to Dutch clinics.

At the time, her practitioners assured Anneke that a maximum of 25 children would be born with the sperm from her donor. But Jonathan's claim that he didn't donate anywhere else turned out to be false. Jonathan had visited almost all Dutch clinics.

Jonathan is now on an unofficial blacklist of fertility clinics. He is one of a handful of men who deliberately cross legal boundaries and have produced (much) more children than the law allows. The blacklist is unofficial, because under applicable privacy laws, clinics are not allowed to exchange information about their donors, but it was born out of necessity.

A preventive system to thwart 'serial sperm donors' has still not been set up. To this day, Dutch clinics only ask a sperm donor to sign a statement stating that he has not previously donated to another clinic and will not do so. Jonathan has signed at all clinics.

'Someone who aims to bring as many children as possible into the world will certainly not be stopped by such a piece of paper,' says Anneke scornfully. 'And clinics know that too. And yet they stick with this system.'

Register: too simple for words

As early as 2016, the Dutch Association for Obstetrics and Gynaecology (NVOG) and the Association for Clinical Embryology (KLEM) argued for a national, central registration for donors. It didn't come. In Portugal, Australia and France, among others, the government has now set up a national register with data from donors, how often they have donated and how many children they have brought into the world through which clinics.

In the Netherlands, the Foundation Donor Data Artificial Fertilization (SDKB) has been collecting data from donors since 2004. Not to register them, but to secure data for the moment that donor children request them. After their twelfth birthday, children can request social and physical donor data. Four years later, when a donor child is 16 years old, they can request personally identifiable information. Only then will it be revealed how lavishly a man donated his seed to which clinics years ago.

This flaw has still not been rectified. Incomprehensible, thinks Arnold Simons, retired gynaecologist and founder of the donor bank (now defunct) at the University Medical Center Groningen. 'It is after all too simple for words. In the early 1990s, I automated our donor bank and the associated clinic, based on the idea that a child should be able to trace its donor father. Links between donors, recipients and children were unambiguously recorded. The SDKB received and will frequently receive that data. Every man or woman who registers as a donor must identify themselves and receive both a national and international donor code. If this person is already in the system, he will be refused.'

Well, it's not that simple, says the Donor Data Foundation: an amendment to the Artificial Fertilization Donor Data Act (Wdkb) is required for this. The proposal to this effect has been awaiting discussion in the House of Representatives for months and has been postponed several times. During a procedural meeting on 8 September, parliament decided not to put this proposal on the agenda yet: they would rather wait for a memorandum of amendment.

Previously, lawsuits brought by donor children caused delays. The FIOM finds it worrying that the discussion of the bill to amend the law is being postponed by the House of Representatives. 'The bill changes a number of important matters, such as the possibility to monitor the maximum number of conceptions per donor after treatment in a Dutch clinic,' the foundation wrote in September.

The Donor Data Foundation reports that it will only be able to track and proactively monitor the number of descendants per donor nationwide after the amendment of the law. 'Now it is only possible to check how many offspring a donor produces per clinic', a spokesperson said.

Scoring drive

The fact that it must take twenty years before the Donor Data Foundation can check all clinics and all donors indicates reluctance, believes Simons. 'Clinics have a scoring drive,' says the retired gynaecologist. 'Doctors think about getting women pregnant, but not about the children being born. This is also apparent from the fact that no one has asked this Jonathan why he went to a clinic 100 kilometers away. Then alarm bells should go off. But there are waiting lists and desperate prospective parents who 'need' to be treated.'

While setting up a national system is already a crime, an international register of sperm donors is much further away. This is a problem in the case of mass donors: they often operate internationally. For example, Jonathan also donated ten times to the Danish sperm bank Cryos, even after clinics in the Netherlands had blacklisted him.

The Dutch authorities and clinics have not informed foreign sperm banks. A woman recognized Jonathan on a profile at the largest sperm bank in the world , where he was registered under the name Ruud. She recognized his photos and raised the alarm at the clinic.

Jonathan had also stated that he had never donated before at Cryos. Cryos has informed all parents with a child from Jonathan's seed. The clinic informs that Jonathan's profile has been removed and that his semen is no longer being used. It is not known how many children were conceived from Jonathan's sperm via Cryos. The clinic only said that his seed was never sold to Dutch clients.

Private donations

Jonathan also regularly donates privately. He offers himself as a sperm donor under various profiles via Facebook. Women looking for a donor can meet with him around ovulation. He only asks for a travel allowance. Finding a donor online has exploded in recent years, especially in the United States.

Finding a donor informally is much cheaper than through a clinic, where both recipient and donor undergo extensive medical examination. According to doctors, this is also the greatest risk of donors in the private sphere. It is legally stipulated that all donor sperm must first be quarantined for six months. The seed may only be used if test results for infectious diseases are good after that period. This applies to donors, but also to prospective parents with their own donor.

The only accusation that wishing mothers can make is that Jonathan has not always been completely honest about the number of children

The corona pandemic caused a decline in donors at clinics, while demand grew. The long waiting times at clinics have driven many people who want to have children towards the internet. In the meantime, prospective parents and donors can swipe to find each other online via special apps such as Modamily and Just a Baby, or they can find each other in Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members.

It is unknown how many children Jonathan has fathered worldwide through clinics and through private donations. Estimates range from five hundred to over a thousand. The New York Times , de Volkskrant and Algemeen Dagblad wrote articles about him, in which mothers tell how this serial sperm donor cheated them. After all, Jonathan consistently reported to them that he had a much lower number of offspring.

According to Jonathan himself, the total number is now 'about 350 children', he wrote on his protected Facebook profile in June. The only reproach that wishing mothers can make him, he thinks, is that he has not always been completely honest about those numbers. He claims that clinics where he donated his seed never asked him if he had donated elsewhere. "They were thrilled with every healthy donor."

'Just help'

Jonathan is not the only active mass donor (or "super donor" as these men are called in the United States). It is unknown how many men are involved. Some of them keep in touch and exchange tips and experiences.

One of them is the English Simon Watson. He has been donating for 22 years and claimed to have more than eight hundred offspring in 2018. He regularly posts pictures of babies (sometimes several a week) and positive pregnancy tests on his Facebook page, with accompanying texts like ' Well done those mummies!'

Super donor Kyle Gordy: ' Can't wait to do a Dutch tour '

The British Watson defended the Dutch Jonathan time and again. He knows Jonathan as 'a good person who only wants to help'. Jonathan and Watson also jointly run Facebook groups for women seeking a donor.

American sperm donor Kyle Gordy, 30, also knows Jonathan: they have regular contact, he says. Gordy runs the Sperm Donation USA Facebook page, a private Facebook page with over 17,000 members.

When I send him a friend request via Facebook and explain that I, as a journalist, want to ask him a few questions about private donors, he is willing to make a phone call. He would like to appear in an article, because he has understood from other private donors that it generates a stream of new applications. Even if the article is critical.

Donation Tour

During the conversation, I was urged several times to explicitly mention his Facebook and Instagram profile, as well as his website, where he gives tips about getting pregnant and how to increase the chance of having a boy or girl. . 'I hope I get a lot of requests from the Netherlands,' says Gordy. ' Can't wait to do a Dutch tour and see Amsterdam.' He usually plans several donations in one trip.

He has just returned from Europe, where he has been a private donor in Sweden, Denmark and the UK. The intended parents reimburse his travel expenses. He tells in his mouth that he has also been to sperm banks in Denmark and the United Kingdom. There he could donate, without verifying whether he had done such a thing before. He is a regular customer in California, where he lives. 'I heard there that I had a very high quality sperm. It has even gotten better in recent years.'

Kyle has been active as a sperm donor for five years now. He usually donates via artificial insemination (he discharges his semen, the woman injects), but he also 'does' inseminations in the natural way, he says. About one in fifteen women wants to become pregnant with him this way.

"Next month I have a few appointments in Brazil, to party there and make some children"

How many children does he now have? Hard to say. He knows that he is the biological father of fifty children. But not everyone makes themselves heard after their visit. The clinics also do not give him any information about the number of children born with his sperm. Gordy: 'Of course I think that's a shame. It's a cool idea that there are all these kids of mine running around the world. Then one day they can meet and have a place to stay, for example, when they go to London.'

He doesn't want a family himself, but he does like to meet his donor children every now and then. On his profile are pictures of him with his progeny, which he visits every now and then. He has not set a cap on himself and will continue to donate until he gets tired of it. 'I like it very much at the moment. In this way I see a lot of the world. Next month I have some appointments in Brazil, to party there and have some kids. As soon as corona is over, I want to go to the Philippines. White donors are very popular there because they produce lighter babies.'

Anne, a 41-year-old single Englishwoman, informed on Facebook that searching online is the only affordable option. Via the official route, the price tag is around 2000 euros: money that she would rather keep in her bank account if she has to take care of a child on her own. 'I try to avoid mass donors, but it's difficult,' says Anne about her search. 'Simon (Watson, ed.) is at least honest that he has many children. Many men say they only help a few women, but to them it seems like a fetish to get as many women as possible to get pregnant. They're almost begging you to choose them.'

Anne also complains that men regularly say it is cheaper to donate if it is done naturally. Or that they insist on having sex at the end because it would be easier and increase the chances of a pregnancy. get. The men (two Italians and one Englishman) also offer the 'natural way' as an option. "Then it's less clinical."

Donate at random

The fact that men like Jonathan and Gordy can donate at random can also be criticized by the clinics, Arnold Simons emphasizes. 'Doctors need to be much more active against men who take pleasure in fathering as many children as possible. We cannot compete with the children who are now born from their donor sperm. They have no voice.'

That's where doctors are allowed to show some self-reflection, Simons thinks. “Doctors need to ask themselves why on earth we've been able to sustain this to this day. Such was the case with the adopted children. That's how it went with anonymous donation. And so it goes again with eventually dozens, if not hundreds of half brothers and sisters in the Netherlands, Europe and beyond. We are constantly behind the times, because the victims can only make themselves heard much later.'

A number of mothers with children of the Dutch Jonathan have united under the name 'Moms on a Mission'. That mission statement is: clinics must pre-screen for mass donors. In addition, they believe there should be a registration system for private donors, where mothers who want to have a child from a donor they have found themselves can check whether and how many other children are already known.

Not a conclusive system, the mothers realize, but a start. Parliamentary questions from the ChristenUnie have so far yielded nothing. In his reply in April this year, outgoing minister De Jonge (Public Health) stated that legislation is not obvious, because it is in the private sphere. He advises intended parents to turn to a clinic, not to private donors on the Internet.

The question is whether the state does not have a more far-reaching duty of care towards the unborn child. As early as the 1990s, the Dutch court ruled that a child in the Netherlands has the right to know who his biological parents are. This is also stated in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 7 thereof states that the child has the 'to the extent possible' right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

The same international treaty states that every child has the right to know about his parentage. A donor register can contribute to this. In addition, clinics with such a register can also check whether a donor who comes forward has not already donated privately (much) more often. Donors are still taken at their word, even if it has become apparent more than once that this trust is not justified.

234 'Jonathan Children'

The Dutch Olivia, together with a number of other mothers who have had a child from Jonathan, has now made a list herself on which they keep track of where children were born to him, in order to reduce the risk of an incestuous relationship: a risk that not only half-brothers- and sisters. Half-nieces and nephews who father a child together also have an increased risk of genetic abnormalities.

Olivia herself had a child from Jonathan four years ago. He had assured her that he would have only five children with other women, but now her child is at school with a half-brother and someone close to her has also had a child from Jonathan, without their knowledge of each other beforehand.

'In the Netherlands we now have 234 children in our sights, 149 of whom we know by name,' Olivia reports. “Some mothers see Jonathan every now and then, along with their children. It's a complicated situation. When you criticize his actions, he puts you on the penalty box and doesn't want to see you again. With which he is actually punishing your child.'

'This article will only dry up the pool of donors'

Jonathan responds by email. He emphasizes that he has contact with hundreds of parents and visits many regularly. 'The criticism of a number of vengeful mothers has made me decide not to have any more contact. I am free in that. I am not punishing the child with that. The mothers did that themselves.'

At the time, Olivia wanted a private donor, so that contact with the father would be possible. After all, contact with the donor is not possible through a clinic until the child's sixteenth birthday. Other reasons are money and waiting times. For a Dutch donor of a clinic, there is often a waiting list of more than a year. The seed from Danish clinics that can be delivered quickly is expensive.

Olivia gets a stomachache from the idea that Jonathan is still donating, especially abroad. 'He lives off it. He has his travel expenses and medical tests reimbursed several times and can eventually earn quite a bit if he visits several women at once.'

Jonathan denies making any money from donating. He says it has actually cost him money in recent years. 'Until a few years ago I only asked for travel costs. When I was no longer able to do a free STI and HIV test through the donation clinics, I had these tests performed myself. Parents reimburse those tests. I also get the travel costs reimbursed, but I have also received enough traffic fines in recent years, which I have never been reimbursed. I also paid for the trips to Denmark to donate to Cryos myself. The ten times I've been there, I paid my airline tickets and hotel costs out of my own pocket.'

He adds that it is regrettable that this article does not pay attention to the many mothers who are happy with their children, whom they have had thanks to him, and with whom he regularly meets. 'There is a scarcity of donors. And this article will only dry up the pool of donors further.'

Jonathan is still donating and has no intention of stopping, also because several mothers would like to have a second child from him. On his private Facebook page, dozens of women are still asking if they can send him a DM. Time and again he answers enthusiastically: 'Yes!'

Anneke calls the practices of the mass donors and the lack of supervision 'an accident in slow motion'. 'The clinics have no advantage at all from tackling these kinds of practices: sperm is their business model. When will we decide to stop seeing this as the outgrowth of a few strange men and the 'naivety' of prospective parents?', Anneke wonders aloud.

“These are men who knowingly cheat things. Whatever the reason, they are out to make as many children as possible, as if they were competing. If there is no legislation to deal with this, then there must be. These men don't stop on their own.'