The Dutchman who admitted to having fathered 550 children with his donated semen assured, this Thursday, that he is not “a rabid bull with a procreative impulse”, during a legal case initiated by the mother of one of the children.
The court case pits Jonathan M., a 41-year-old Dutchman, with Eva, who gave birth using the defendant’s sperm, and the Donorkind Foundation, which has admitted that no law explicitly prohibits Jonathan’s actions, although it believes that these they are “unnecessarily putting” offspring at risk.
Eva intends to prevent Jonathan from continuing to donate sperm in clinics and through social networks, reported the Efe news agency.
Several mothers of children conceived with the defendant’s semen appeared before the court in the city of The Hague, so many that some had to follow the trial in another room.
According to the indictment, Jonathan’s actions are dangerous, “in view of the scientifically proven risk of inbreeding, incest, and negative psychosocial consequences for children born by sperm donation.”
In addition, it prevents the sexual freedom of “children” because they must always verify that a potential partner is not actually their half brother.
Jonathan, who admitted to being the father of at least 550 children upon arrival in court, argued that the risk of incest is “very small” because his children may know who the father is because he is not an anonymous donor, and he regretted doing so. become “the face of large-scale sperm donors”.
“I was presented as some kind of rabid bull with a procreative drive. I’m not. I do not believe in evolution, but in creation, ”she stressed.
In addition, he assured that he has a good relationship with many parents and that he was at the birth of several of their children and even at the funeral of one.
“I am not going to offer myself more ‘online’, but if the future parents approach me, I want to have the freedom to respond,” he stressed, ensuring that he has not made active donations since 2019, although he is still available to families who already have at least one biological child.
The Dutch association of gynecologists NVOG alerted to this case in 2017, when it learned that this man had fathered at least 102 children in 11 clinics in the country, which subsequently included him on a blacklist.
Jonathan continued to donate in other countries and through social media.
Eva assures that she has contact with affected parents in Australia, Germany, Denmark, Spain, the United Kingdom or Italy, and even in Africa, such as Kenya and Tanzania. “They are everywhere,” she stressed.
Anonymous donation was banned in 2004, and for each treatment, clinics must record the case in a database, although no information is exchanged between clinics.
The Dutch Parliament has a proposal on the table to review the operation of the national registry of semen donors, which has existed for twenty years, but it does not serve to prevent cases like Jonathan’s and only provides data from a father to the children who upon request and under very strict conditions.
In addition to Jonathan’s case, at least ten gynecologists have been identified as having used their own semen without the knowledge of women who wanted to get pregnant at their fertility clinics in the Netherlands.
One of them is Jan Karbaat, with 81 confirmed children, or the gynecologist Jan Wildschut, father of at least 47 children.
The most recent case had emerged in November. A Dutchman, recently deceased from esophageal cancer, donated his sperm to different women he contacted online and will have fathered at least 80 children in the Netherlands.
In 2021, a record 1,415 people born by sperm donation sought genetic information about their biological father, due to these scandals.
Source: TSF
