Dutch serial sperm donor who may have fathered 550 children sued over increasing risk of inbreeding

Becoming a father may be a major milestone in some men’s lives, but one Dutchman may be pushing paternity to extreme levels.

A prolific sperm donor in the Netherlands suspected to have fathered more than 550 children is being sued over accusations that his high fertility may contribute to increased risk of inbreeding and incest.

The Donorkind Foundation, headquartered in The Hague, is taking musician Jonathan Jacob Meijer, 41, to court to formally stop him from donating sperm on suspicion that he has under-reported the number of children he has fathered.

He was first flagged in 2017, when the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (NVOG) called on clinics to stop using his sperm, saying he had been illegally donating to multiple different fertility clinics in the country and had fathered at least 102 children by then.

In the Netherlands, a country of around 17.5 million people, men are allowed to donate sperm to only one clinic and up to 12 women, and may not father more than 25 children to prevent inbreeding, incest or psychological problems for children who find out they have multiple siblings.

But Mr Meijer may have exploited the fact that clinics do not share information on their donors and clients. He has already been blacklisted, but continued donating sperm in Denmark and Ukraine, even offering his sperm online for home insemination beyond the fertility clinic system, Dutch media has reported.

He now lives in Kenya and sometimes uses the alias Ruud online, according to Dutch daily AD.

Ms Vanessa van Ewijk approached Mr Meijer through a website, Desire For a Child, in 2015, paying €165 (S$240) and transport costs for his services, reported The New York Times. She repeated the procedure two years later, but was taken aback when he admitted he has produced at least 175 children.

“I’m just helping women make their biggest wish come true,” she recalled him saying.

A Dutch woman known as Eva who is part of the Donorkind lawsuit said she would not have chosen Mr Meijer as a donor if she had known he was already father to hundreds of children, adding that she was told he had promised to stick within the limits.

“If I think about the consequences this could have for my child, I am sick to my stomach,” she said in a statement on Sunday.

Donorkind is campaigning for clinics storing Mr Meijer’s sperm to destroy the remaining samples unless reserved by women who already have children by him.

“We are taking action against this man because the government is doing nothing,” the foundation’s chairman Ties van der Meer said. “He has a global reach via the Internet.”

Mr Meijer has been approached for comment. He has a YouTube channel with more than 4,500 subscribers, who receive updates on his music and other commentary videos. In one video, he attempts to dispel the “myth of overpopulation” amid “horribly” low birth rates.