European Fertility Group Calls for Donor Limits

A European fertility organization is advocating for international limits on the number of children a single sperm donor can father, addressing concerns raised by donor-conceived individuals who have discovered an unexpectedly large number of siblings. Ties van der Meer, a 47-year-old conceived through anonymous sperm donation in the Netherlands, shared his experience of the clinic destroying records after anonymous donation was banned in 2004, leaving him uncertain about his full biological family. He eventually found one sibling, who aided in identifying his father and other genetic relatives, but acknowledges that more may remain undiscovered.

Concerns about the scale of sibling discovery were highlighted by a donor-conceived woman who found 25 half-siblings over seven years, describing the experience as "a bit mass-produced." The organization plans to initiate a Europe-wide limit, acknowledging that while many countries, including the UK, have banned anonymous egg and sperm donation, anonymity is not always guaranteed. The proliferation of genetic testing services like Ancestry and 23andMe, alongside genetic registries, has significantly eased the process for donor-conceived individuals to locate genetic relatives.

These advancements mean that donor-conceived people can discover the identity of a genetic parent years after their death or find siblings of vastly different ages across the globe. The issue of donors fathering a large number of children is exemplified by Jonathan Meijer, a Dutch man who began donating sperm in 2007 and whose donations have reportedly resulted in between 550 and 600 children, according to Stichting Donorkind, an advocacy foundation.