Serial sperm donor has had over 550 children is facing trial in his own country

The Hague res­i­dent Jonathan Jacob Mey­er, 41, is accused of cheat­ing on hun­dreds of women around the world and hav­ing about 550 chil­dren. Mei­jer is sched­uled to appear in Dutch court in April after the Donorkind Foun­da­tion sued him to block fur­ther sperm donations.

The Dutch Soci­ety of Obste­tri­cians and Gyne­col­o­gists first raised con­cerns about Mei­jer in 2017, when he had near­ly 102 chil­dren in the Nether­lands after donat­ing sperm in 10 clin­ics. He was then black­list­ed in his home coun­try, but instead resort­ed to donat­ing sperm abroad.

Eva, a Dutch woman who gave birth to a child con­ceived with Mei­jer’s sperm in 2018, expressed her con­cern about the impact Mei­jer’s con­duct would have on her son. If she had known he already had over 100 chil­dren, she would not have cho­sen him, she argued. Both she and the Donorkind Foun­da­tion hope the law­suit will lead to the destruc­tion of Mei­jer’s stored sperm.

Ties van der Meer, pres­i­dent of the Donorkind Foun­da­tion, crit­i­cized the gov­ern­men­t’s inac­tion on the issue, say­ing that Mei­jer works glob­al­ly through the inter­net and deals with major for­eign sperm banks. A lawyer for the foun­da­tion, Mark de Hek, claimed that Mei­jer vio­lat­ed a pledge not to have more than 25 chil­dren. Dutch author­i­ties have since updat­ed the law to lim­it sperm dona­tion to a max­i­mum of 12 women.

Kenyan musi­cian Mei­jer has become a suc­cess­ful ser­i­al sperm donor glob­al­ly and the case high­lights the need for tighter reg­u­la­tion and over­sight in the bur­geon­ing fer­til­i­ty field.