Serial sperm donor sued over incest fears

A Dutch man is being sued for allegedly increasing the risk of incest through his countless donations to sperm banks.

Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who lives in Kenya, is accused of misleading hundreds of women all over the world and may have fathered more than 550 children, according to the DonorKind foundation, which has brought the court case.

The charity is representing 25 families who are suing the 41-year-old musician. A woman named only as Eva, who had a child by Meijer in 2018, said in a statement: “If I had known he had already fathered more than 100 children I would never have chosen him.”

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In 2017, Meijer was blacklisted after the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology first raised the alarm about the number of donations. However, he continued to offer his services in Denmark, Ukraine and on various websites, said Dutch News.

Dutch sperm clinic guidelines say donors should not father more than 25 children or be used by more than 12 women – to “prevent inbreeding, incest or psychological problems for donor children”, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The families and DonorKind are hoping for an injunction to stop Meijer donating sperm and to find out exactly where he has previously donated. They also want all his sperm still in storage to be destroyed, unless it has been reserved for a woman who already has one of his children.

“He has a global reach via the internet and he does business with large, international sperm banks,” DonorKind chairman Ties van der Meer, told the Telegraph. “We are taking action against this man because the government is doing nothing.”

“Going to court is the only option,” said Eva in the Daily Mirror. “Many mothers have told him he needs to stop but nothing helps,” she said.

“I like to see that there are children of mine all over the world,” Meijer said in 2019, reported The Times, after his case was first reported on.