A Dutch court has ordered a man who has fathered up to 600 children around the world to stop donating sperm.
The court ruling said the 41-year-old Dutchman, identified by De Telegraaf as Jonathan Meijer, was prohibited from donating more semen to clinics.
He could be fined €100,000 (£88,000) for each offence.
The judges also ordered Meijer, a musician from The Hague, to write to clinics abroad asking them to destroy any of their available semen, except for doses intended for parents who already have children.
The decision came after a civil case was initiated by a foundation representing the interests of Dutch donor children and parents who used Meijer as a donor.
The court ruling said the 41-year-old Dutch man, identified by De Telegraaf as Jonathan Meijer, was prohibited from donating more semen to clinics.
They argued that Meijer’s continued donations violated the right to a private life of his donor children, whose ability to form romantic relationships is hampered by fears of accidental incest and inbreeding.
Meijer’s group donations first came to light in 2017 and he was banned from donating to Dutch fertility clinics, as he had already fathered more than 100 children.
However, he continued to donate abroad, including to the internationally operating Danish sperm bank Cryos, and offered his services via websites and social media, according to Dutch news site Algemeen Dagblad daily.
Meijer also continued to present himself as a donor on websites that matched potential fathers with sperm donors, sometimes using a different name.
Eva, the Dutch woman at the center of the case before the court, She had a baby boy by Mr. Meagher in 2018 and said it made her feel “sick to the stomach” because he had fathered so many other children.
Earlier this year, she said, “If I had known he had already fathered 100+ children, I would never have chosen him.” If I think about the consequences for my child, I am sick to my stomach.
Several moms told him he needed to stop, but nothing helped. So going to court is the only option I have to protect my child.
The judges also ordered Meagher to write to clinics abroad to ask them to destroy any of their available semen, except for doses intended for parents who already have children.
Eva and the Donorkind Foundation wanted to stop Mr. Meijer’s donation and see which clinics he donated his sperm to. They accused Mr. Meagher of “lying” to hundreds of women about the number of children he had fathered.
Eva said she also wanted all of his stored sperm destroyed, unless it was reserved for a woman who already had one of his children.
We are taking action against this man because the national government is doing nothing,” said Theis van der Meer, president of the foundation. He has a global reach online and he deals with large international sperm banks.
Donorkind’s attorney, Mark D. Heck, said the behavior was dangerous to the mental health and health of the donor children. By favoring his reproductive motive, the donor is acting illegally.
“In addition, he violates the agreements made with the clinics and with the prospective parents, because they trusted his promise that he would have a maximum of 25 children.”
On his online profile, Meijer understandably claimed to look like Hollywood actors Brad Pitt and Chris Hemsworth, and Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in March, Julia – who wanted to start a family with wife Ida – said in fact, she thought he looked like a Viking.
However, the couple—and they decided he was “cute”—met him at a hotel to sample him, saying he seemed warm and sincere.
As Meijer had not asked for a fee, they told The Daily Mail they had no reason to suspect him when he said his motive for helping them was purely altruistic. They also believed him when he said he only helped create “14 or 15” other children.
However, they later discovered the truth about how many children he had, saying that it shocked them to the core.
Julia and her wife said they remain convinced that Meagher is, at heart, “a nice guy.”
However, they suggest that he may have a psychological aberration that makes him “addicted” to having children.
Julia said either that or, “He wants to be in the Guinness Book of Records. Those are the only two reasons that could explain why he wanted to spread his genes.”
Some of his ‘victims’ created a Facebook page with the sinister name Donor 102 – the number of children found to have been born in 2017.
Pictured: File photo of a liquid nitrogen tank used in the sperm donation process
It was then that Dutch health authorities discovered for the first time that he had been secretly supplying sperm to nearly every fertility clinic in the country.
This far exceeds the legal limit in the Netherlands, which allows donors to father 25 children by up to 12 different women.
Since then, however, Meijer has defiantly continued to expand his extensive ‘family’ by registering with sperm banks such as Denmark-based Cryos International, the world’s largest provider, which supplies more than 100 countries, including Britain, and other large international fertility Clinic in Ukraine.
He is also found to have made private arrangements online, where sperm donation is completely unregulated, as Julia and Ida find to their emotional cost.
