Sperm Donations in Holland: When the Legal Framework Falls Down
In Holland, revelations of misuse in sperm donations underline how unrealistic it is to believe that the legal framework governing the practice can be maintained and complied with.The British newspaper The Guardian last week published new information, referring to a “medical disaster”. At least 85 donors are claimed to be the biological fathers of 25 children or more. Some have even fathered between 50 and 75 children!
The scandal of “mass donors”
The National Organisation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics has apologised. Indeed, specialist clinics are involved in these serious failures: the wilful use of sperm from the same donor more than 25 times, sperm exchanges between clinics without informing the donor or without adequate administrative control. Dutch law in fact specifies a ceiling of 25 children per donor. But the ceiling, which was lowered to 12 in 2018, has not been obeyed. This year, a national register of donors and mothers has been established in order to better monitor compliance with this limit, and has revealed the existence of a scandal of “mass donors”. Among them, there are even some ten gynaecologists who have used their own sperm. For example, Dr. Jan Karbaat, who runs a fertility clinic, has illegally fathered at least 81 children.
The difficulty in controlling the practice of sperm donations
In Holland, which is a small densely populated nation, the subject is highly sensitive. The risks range from relationships between unknown half-brothers and sisters, to unintended incest… The children born from such practices will therefore have to confront stressful problems such as having to ask for genetic testing before entering into any relationship. The rightly delirious case of Jonathan Meijer, known as the man with a thousand children, shocked the Dutch population. Netflix produced a documentary on the case last year. Recent revelations of other cases of “serial donors” have highlighted the difficulty in controlling the practice of sperm donations, even when a legal framework is established.
In France, an investigation by France Info published in December 2021 described situations where gynaecologists, in the 70s and 80s, would also have used their own sperm for insemination purposes. The vice-president of the PMAnonyme association spoke at the time of “The beginnings of a sanitary scandal”.
The failure to respect the limits by some donors or by the medical teams is not the only problem. By dissociating paternal responsibility from biological procreation, medically assisted procreation inevitably opens the door to such risks of misuse.
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