The Netherlands Times reports:
A Dutch sperm donor with hundreds of children must immediately stop donating sperm, the court in The Hague ruled on Friday. Jonathan M. (41) says he has about 550 children. The summary proceedings were filed by Stichting Donorkind, a nonprofit organization that advocates for people whose biological parent was a donor, and a mother who has a child conceived with M.’s sperm.
Jonathan argued that he has a legal right to parent children and should be allowed to continue. Instead of it being considered strange, he said that his approach to parenting children should be viewed as “an entirely new concept.” He has also created an online platform where his biological children can voluntarily decide to get to connect with their siblings, or interact with their biological father.
Donorkind has also argued that the mass donation by one person was also psychologically damaging for mothers. Some of them said they were led to believe that the donor, Jonathan, did not donate his sperm frequently and now feel as though they have involuntarily taken part in “a strange social experiment.”
The Associated Press reports:
Dutch guidelines stipulate that donors are only allowed to father a maximum of 25 children with 12 mothers, but the man had breezed past the limit with many more donations to clinics in the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as to others he met through online advertisements and forums.
“All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose,” the court added. The man will now face a $110,000 fine every time he breaks his ban in the future.
“All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose.”https://t.co/4YhnOJbcdj
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) April 28, 2023