A lesson every kid needs to learn is how to share. Little ones usually want everything for themselves, but as we grow and mature, we learn that sharing is caring. But there are some who have perhaps taken sharing too far.
Sperm donation. It’s a massive industry, helping hundreds of thousands of families enter into the joy of parenthood. Whether it's for altruistic reasons, the inherent desire to spread their wild oats, or just to earn some quick cash (2 minutes is all it takes), many men choose to donate.
But for whatever reason, some men seem to like living that donor lifestyle a little too much, popping off as much as they can to germinate their genes far and wide. However, the consequences of rampant sperm donation can lead to unexpected and troubling encounters, especially when donors father multiple children who may unknowingly swipe right on their sibling. This happened to the offspring of a Dutch donor known as “Louis”, who was suspected of having 200 offspring, some of whom encountered each other on Tinder.
Imagine this scenario: British twins separated at birth, adopted into different families, and then, unbeknownst to them, they got married. To each other. It might sound like the plot of a daytime soap opera, but it actually happened.
Of course, there are rules around how much sperm one man can donate. But the rules vary from country to country and they’re not very well enforced. And for the eager beavers out there, there are ways around regulations that might impede the narcissistic spread of their seed.
For one thing, they could become a fertility specialist like Dr. Jan Karbaat, who swapped out the juice cups and fathered at least 68 children, violating Dutch rules.
There are also private donation clinics that not only pay a little more but just take your word for it that you’re not donating anywhere else.
But the mega sperm donor award goes to Jonathan Meijer, who didn’t seem to care for regulations and is believed to have fathered hundreds of children through sperm donation. His actions came to light when the Dutch Donor Child Foundation filed a lawsuit against him for increasing the risk of accidental incest.
After being blacklisted from donating in the Netherlands (he lightened his load in 11 clinics), Meijer took on a nomadic donor life, donating sperm in multiple countries and privately over the internet, often using assumed or fake names to bypass restrictions. He has confirmed children in Australia, Italy, Serbia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, and the USA.
Meijer saw his donations as acts of love. He was, after all, a blonde musical Viking.
So what’s stopping more of these mini Meijers from hooking up with each other?
And would you buy a cup of juice from a random person at a train station?
SOURCES:
Sperm Donor Who Fathered About 550 Children Faces Lawsuit for Increasing Risk of Accidental Incest | Complex by JOSE MARTINEZ Mar 31, 2023
The Case of the Serial Sperm Donor - The New York Times By Jacqueline Mroz Feb 1, 2021
I fathered 800 children, claims sperm donor - BBC News By Natalie Morton & Sarah Bell 13 January 2016
Did a pair of twins really get married by mistake? | Family | The Guardian By Jon HenleyJan 15 2008
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[00:00:00] Rod: But one of the worries about sperm donation that I hadn't thought about before was dudes who really like to donate. I don't mean as pervs, they just donate a lot.
[00:00:08] Will: A lot of people are like, no, I don't wanna do that. That's not me. Yeah. You know, I don't wanna have kids out there that I don't know. Other people are like, no, that doesn't bother me at all. Or maybe I even think that's a nice thing. My oats wild out there
[00:00:17] Rod: sewed and germinating.
[00:00:19] Will: I can imagine they just go, well, on for young and old.
[00:00:21] Rod: Yes. Not so much for old, but yes. There are screenings. Why does it matter? Well, depending on where they do it and how often they do it, you increase the chances of accidental incest. And this could be a thing. This isn't just like some theoreticians and, you know, overly excited legislators going we could have a problem here.
[00:00:37] Will: No, I get it because you could also imagine guy is like, Oh, I do this a fair bit, but I don't bring it up at family conversations and sister, you know, it was like, well, I'll go and get some sperm donation
[00:00:49] Rod: and I'm really attracted to this profile, bro. So we're in the house of lords. It's 2008. British MPs were having a debate about laws on human fertility and embryology. During the debate, Lord Alton addressed the house. He told them about British twins who had been separated at birth and then found out they were related after they got married.
[00:01:19] Will: Oh yeah. Well, you know, that would suck. It would suck. I mean, firstly, don't separate them. You know, they got to keep their natural magic between them.
[00:01:28] Rod: For whatever reasons they were separated and adopted out. Anyway, they found out they were siblings after marriage. So they'd been separated, gone to separate families and they quote, met later in life, felt an inevitable attraction and the judge, therefore, in the court case had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation. So the union was annulled as soon as the true relationship became known. Adoption group said that this case proves the need for openness and transparency in the adoption process.
[00:01:58] Will: Sure. Yeah.
[00:01:59] Rod: But to be fair, countries like the UK and many, you know, similar adoptions pretty well regulated. It's pretty well tracked. So I don't think this is even slightly common. This is serious outlier. But of course there are other services that are out there to help people who want to have a child in a non biblical way. And some, like poorly controlled and communicated sperm donation, have a lot more potential to lead to, let's say unanticipated and troubling encounters. So welcome to the wild world of accidental incest.
[00:02:38] Will: Welcome to the wholesome show. The podcast that vows to bring you all the dark secrets from the whole of science.
[00:02:46] Rod: You thought it was going to be worse didn't you. I saw your face. You picked up that piece of paper and you were going, this is going to be awful. It nearly was.
[00:02:54] Will: I'm will Grant.
[00:02:55] Rod: I'm Rod lambert.
[00:02:55] Will: Oh my god. Oh my god. Accidental incest. Yeah, well that's,
[00:03:01] Rod: As another episode we recorded, let's say recently, this is one of the ones where you look at it and you go, how the hell have we not talked about this before?
[00:03:09] Will: Well, I don't go around thinking about accidental incest.
[00:03:11] Rod: Me neither. Like, in fact, this came to me via my dear wife.
[00:03:15] Will: Not your sister?
[00:03:16] Rod: Oh, we haven't checked. Court's still out. So sperm donation, it's huge, multi bajillion, gazillion dollar global industry.
[00:03:24] Will: Yeah, those numbers are accurate.
[00:03:25] Rod: People would be spoofing and selling it everywhere, I think is the summary. Okay. There are many things to consider about the whole... Donation thing, you know, from let's say production through to storage, to supply, to regulation, you know, complexities of managing the entire business.
[00:03:38] Will: This is all going to be about refrigeration, isn't it?
[00:03:40] Rod: This is what, this is actually the history of freezing sperm and other such. No, it's not. So one of the, one of the worries about sperm donation that I hadn't thought about before was dudes who really liked to donate. Get very into it. I don't mean as pervs, they just donate a lot.
[00:03:56] Will: I know there are places where they make money for it. Is, is that
[00:03:58] Rod: money's not necessarily great though? It's not necessarily huge. You can get a bit, but not a lot. Yeah. And I'll tell you a bit more about this. What do they call it? The donor lifestyle.
[00:04:06] Will: But I can also imagine that there's a threshold to, you know, mentally getting yourself ready to do it. And a lot of people are like, no, I don't want to do that. That's not me. I don't want to have kids out there that I don't know that kind of thing. Other people are like, no, that doesn't bother me at all. Or maybe I even think that's a nice thing. To, you know, have my fruits out there scattered wild, my oats wild out there.
[00:04:26] Rod: Sowed and germinated.
[00:04:28] Will: I can imagine they just go, well, well on for young and old.
[00:04:31] Rod: Not so much for old, but yes. There are screenings. So, why does it matter? Well, depending on where they do it and how often they do it, you increase the chances of accidental incest. And this could be a thing. This isn't just like some theoreticians and, you know, overly excited legislators going we could have a problem here.
[00:04:48] Will: No, I get it. Because you could also imagine guy is like, Oh, I do this a fair bit, but I don't bring it up at family conversations, you know, all the time. And sister, you know, is like, Oh, I'll go and get some sperm donation.
[00:05:02] Rod: And I'm really attracted to this profile, bro. So depending on where you are in the world, it might be quite well regulated or at least have strong guidelines, but even where they do have them, they're not necessarily easy or super well enforced. So Germany, here's an example. A sperm donor clinic may not produce more than 15 children. One donor, no more than 15 kids. But in theory, that donor could go to another clinic and another clinic. They don't necessarily know that. Most of them seem to have a thing where you sign that you haven't been multi donning.
[00:05:34] Will: Okay. And are those policies basically to stop the accidental incest?
[00:05:37] Rod: It's part of it. Big part of it.
[00:05:39] Will: I was wondering if there's another reason that you would limit to 15. It just feels...
[00:05:43] Rod: Saturating the market with certain types. I don't know. United Kingdom, the cap is 10 families. A person could donate to 10 families, unlimited number of children, but they can only seed through 10 wombs. United States, there are no legal limits, only guidelines from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
[00:06:02] Will: Of course, America. You do what you like.
[00:06:05] Rod: My juice, my choice
[00:06:07] Will: my juice, my choice. I do wonder about these guys, like in the UK one where they're, oh, this is my number 10. That's it.
[00:06:13] Rod: My 10th family. So in the U S there's 25 children per donor in a population of 800, 000. So you try to make sure you limit the amount of children in a population of 800, 000 or more to try and limit the odds of inter familial reproduction. Also, there's nothing in the U. S. or anywhere, apparently, that would keep a donor from donating at more than one sperm bank, like we say, so in theory they could wander around. The sperm banks claim they ask the donor if they've done it before, but you don't know for sure.
[00:06:43] Will: I feel like I might have a solution to all this, but maybe.
[00:06:47] Rod: Just one person donate and lets us be honest about it.
[00:06:50] Will: No. You know, you could have a conversation in the family, you just say, I'm looking for some sperm. Has any of you donated before?
[00:06:56] Rod: Yeah, I mean, look, you have a very open family and I know you'd like to shower together and all that, but others don't. Don't talk about what they do with their seminal by products. So also people from anywhere in the world can donate to global agencies. So the world's biggest sperm clinic, can you guess which country?
[00:07:14] Will: No, see, I'm not thinking this as a country. It's like offshore above us. Like it's a giant vat of sperm, like it's global, like the UN has a,
[00:07:21] Rod: and you just grab a thin little pipe
[00:07:23] Will: yeah, and it's all mixed in together. Like it's completely random.
[00:07:26] Rod: It's a small world after all
[00:07:27] Will: it's you know, full equity.
[00:07:28] Rod: You could get anything.
[00:07:30] Will: Yeah. Lucky dip. That's what I'm imagining is the world's biggest sperm clinic. Am I right or wrong?
[00:07:37] Rod: Can you imagine though? We just got a vat, give it a stir. There's yours, what am I getting? I don't know, it's part of the fun. It's in Denmark. Cryos International. And they ship, apparently, semen to more than 100 countries.
[00:07:53] Will: Oh, they're harvesting from around the world. They're harvesting from around the world
[00:07:55] Rod: they'll take anyone's gunk and they will give it to people for a price. So that's Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Denmark. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what about the Netherlands? I can see it on your face. You're like the Netherlands. I wonder what the Dutch do. So Dutch law prohibits donating anonymously and non binding guidelines limit clinic donors to 25 children.
[00:08:18] Will: That's non binding though.
[00:08:19] Rod: Yeah. And they're not allowed to donate at more than one clinic in the country. But of course there are ways to get around this.
[00:08:24] Will: Ah, there is the EU. You know, you can just go across the border.
[00:08:27] Rod: But here's one way to get around it. It ain't great. 2019. It came to a fertility specialist, Dr. Jan Karbaat, but he died a couple of years before. His fertility specialist, he secretly fathered at least 68 children.
[00:08:42] Will: So hang on. So they've selected from a profile and he's gone no I'll put my thanks, buddy. Is he in jail?
[00:08:51] Rod: No, he died like his old or something or got sick, but he two years after he died, it came to light that's what he'd been doing.
[00:08:57] Will: Seriously.
[00:08:57] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. What a shit. But that's the way around it. Be a fertility doctor. This is not a common tale. So an advocacy group called the Dutch Donor Child Foundation, now they facilitate legal and emotional support for people who looking for relatives of the good doctor. They do more than that, but that's one of the things. Another Dutch donor, a guy that was apparently known as Louis, he was thought to have more than 200 offspring, many who are unaware of each other. So a few years ago, a guy called Ivo van Halen he learned that he was among one of these 200. And since then, he's managed to connect with at least 42 of his half siblings
[00:09:31] Will: like via LinkedIn
[00:09:32] Rod: support group, anyone come from Louie? But more importantly, some of his half siblings we need to note have encountered each other many times on Tinder. One of his half brothers matched online with four of his half sisters.
[00:09:45] Will: Why? Have you got the odds for this? Like, what are the
[00:09:48] Rod: 60 in 209? There are studies that suggest people
[00:09:52] Will: might be attracted here. Like it's not just completely random.
[00:09:55] Rod: Yeah. There's a similarity thing that is attractive and appealing that you might not, it might not be as tangible as you imagine. Yeah. But the kind of that maybe there's sort of shape or a style or a pheromonal or something, but they're a similarity appeal
[00:10:07] Will: can't get pheromones through Tinder
[00:10:08] Rod: but once you meet for your first date. you date through Tinder or you just date through Tinder? I don't know. I've never been on it. I was relationship before the Tinders. So the group keeps a list. The group of offspring of Van Halen keep a list of potential siblings and so they refer to it before they go dating. And apparently according to, I'll call him Van Halen jr, he's been very careful when he dates and he has a very trained eye by now.
[00:10:34] Will: So he's a spotter. That's one of my sisters.
[00:10:37] Rod: Probably my sister. Hot though. Damn. Oh no, she's on the list. But these guys, this is amateur hour.
[00:10:45] Will: Why are you making me feel bad?
[00:10:46] Rod: Why? No, this is good. It's a feel good story. Earlier this year, 2023, for those of you listening in the future. 41 year old Jonathan Meyer being sued for increasing the chances of accidental incest amongst a group of people. They suspect at least at this point or at that point that he had fathered between five and 600 children through sperm donation. So the Dutch donor child foundation, mentioned before, they filed the lawsuit, they found out he'd been ignoring pleas from at least a number of women to stop donating because Started to become aware that he'd been a bit busy.
[00:11:19] He contributed to at least 13 clinics, including 11 in the Netherlands. He said once earlier in the piece, I'd like to see that there are children of mine all over the world. So his mass donations first came to like 2017. And that's when they found links to him fathering at least 102 children, which violates Dutch rules.
[00:11:39] However, the rules are guidelines, you know, they're a bit there. And of course it was put in place to prevent inbreeding incest or the psychological problems of all this. So he was blacklisted from donating in the Netherlands, 2017. You're out sport. There's a picture of him, no entry. So he keeps rolling in other countries instead, including via the sperm bank in Denmark.
[00:11:58] Will: Seriously. Who's like, I want to do this so much. I'm traveling internationally to make sure that I can, even though I've been blacklisted in my hometown. Oh my God.
[00:12:07] Rod: So it's been suggested that Cryos, the Danish company, don't set an overall limit on how many children the donor may actually lead to producing, but it claims that it adheres to the guidelines set by the countries into which the sperm is being delivered.
[00:12:21] It claims that. So the New York Times reporter reached out to get comment and the CEO of the company said, look, a donor could not sign up to donate without being aware of the exclusivity clause. There's no way you could sign up to donate. He says, no, this is impossible. He says in an email. Don't assign and commit in contractual terms to not donate in any other tissue establishments than ours.
[00:12:41] Will: A commitment? That guy couldn't possibly break that.
[00:12:43] Rod: Nope, it's impossible because he said he wouldn't. Also the CEO adds, on a general level, Cryos disassociates itself from any form of serial sperm donation due to the importance of not exceeding national pregnancy quotas.
[00:12:56] So whatever, Mayer's like, I don't care. He still went on to offer himself as a donor on sites that would match prospective people. So it's not illegal. You can kind of go, yeah, I get it. And there are many stories about dudes and they meet you in a railway station. Here's a jar of spoof.
[00:13:09] Will: like literally?
[00:13:10] Rod: Yeah, literally. How well is it contained and
[00:13:12] Will: How well is it looked after?
[00:13:14] Rod: You get a little bit of party ice, you put it in a takeaway coffee cup. Maybe they do it there. Maybe they go to the bathroom at the
[00:13:23] Will: of course there's plenty of hookups and things like that, but yeah
[00:13:27] Rod: and these people, it's not like they're secretly trying to bang people. It's a business
[00:13:31] Will: or not a business, but I'm struggling for the right word. If it's hobby or if it's a passion project
[00:13:36] Rod: or if it's a calling. I just want to help people.
[00:13:37] Will: I mean, I absolutely get that there is a compelling need. Don't we have a sperm shortage at the moment? No, but I thought there was multiple sperm shortages, one decline in, in sperm quality and that all around the world that each individual on average, like we're producing less sperm than our grandfathers did, but they were the greatest generation.
[00:13:55] Rod: I never asked my grandfather. They had volumes. grandpa, what's the standard load for our family? What's all the horrible noise from the bedroom, it sounds like the roof sprung a leak, get a bucket and a mop. We're in trouble. Oh no, it's just grandma and grandpa.
[00:14:10] Will: But the other thing as well that I thought I had sperm clinics themselves.
[00:14:13] Rod: Maybe true. I'm not sure. Luckily we have Jonathan Meyer. It's claimed he would donate under assumed and fake names, which is not on, but also he's denied it.
[00:14:23] Will: Like, okay, so he's working on the idea of, I like my my wild oats growing around the world.
[00:14:27] Rod: I want them in the snow. I want them at the beach. I want them in the city. I want them in the country.
[00:14:31] Will: Does he want his kids to accidentally have incest?
[00:14:34] Rod: I'm pretty clear he did not think about that even a little bit. So let's talk about how his panspermia actually, how far it went. Joelle Deboer. She's a volunteer with the child donor foundation, the Dutch donor child foundation, and she's been tracking his activities. So according to her research, he's been traveling throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Ukraine, donating sperm at various clinics as well as privately over the internet since 2007, but he hasn't made it that hard to track him because like this is one example comment on Facebook 2017.
[00:15:07] Two weeks ago, I went to donate in Kiev at a biotexcom clinic. The lady I helped use an egg donor from Ukraine, which will be fertilized with my sperm. I must say this is one of the best experiences I've had with clinics. He's also on eight private donation sites Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
[00:15:22] One site, he advertised himself as a blonde musical Viking donor. So how many mini mayors are actually out there? It's a bit hard to say. However, there are definitely, I don't know, Meyerlettes in Australia, Italy, Serbia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, and the U. S.
[00:15:40] Will: Wow.
[00:15:41] Rod: The Dutch Donor Child Foundation, they work out based on his known pattern of activities with clinics and private donation. They reckon it could be as high as a thousand. Wow.
[00:15:52] New York Time reporter that he says assumptions of a thousand are ridiculous. I'm disappointed by the obsession about numbers. I cannot understand how anyone can only focus on numbers and see my donor children as a number. So he's gone all Trump about it. They don't know the people and like, no one's saying they're not people. In fact, it's worse because they are people.
[00:16:08] We talked about this along the way. What, why do people do it? So there seemed to be three motivations, one money, two generosity and three you want to pass on your DNA. I'd say for some people just probably get a bit of a thrill. So money, doesn't sound like there's much money in it. Really
[00:16:23] Will: like what are we talking? Is it like 50 bucks pop
[00:16:25] Rod: 50 a pop. If you go private, you might, you know, get 150 bucks or something, but apparently some donors, people agree to travel them around to deliver it. So they get their travel for free. Plus, you know, a hundred bucks
[00:16:36] Will: that could be a weekender or something like that.
[00:16:38] Rod: I'm like pop across on the Urail.
[00:16:40] Will: How bad do you want to go to New York for the weekend? All we have to do is I just have to pop off
[00:16:45] Rod: when we get there I'm going to wank in a jar and then I'll buy dinner.
[00:16:48] Will: Then let's go see the Met.
[00:16:50] Rod: Yeah. Generosity is one of the big ones. So Meyer claims this, he became a donor, not for any numbers, but out of love to help parents realise their dreams, which may not be untrue. The third thing this whole desire to pass on your DNA, you know, and which, you know, depending on the male, that's a strong narcissistic and or biological drive.
[00:17:08] Will: I mean, that's a known thing, but to jump that, to I want to have kids to have a thousand kids, I want to have more kids than I could possibly have in, in, in one, two, three, four marriages. Well, you go full Genghis Khan. Yeah. Isn't it like a quarter of Asia is descended from Genghis Khan.
[00:17:27] Rod: So what happened to Mayer in the end? So the Dutch court forbade him from donating to any clinics and he could be fined up to a hundred thousand Euro per infraction. Which is pretty rich. And the court also ordered him to write to clinics overseas and ask them to destroy any of his semen. So he's basically write apology letters and say, get rid of it, except for doses reserved for parents who already have children by him. And I mean, one of the ways they discovered this or some of the women who started to realize there was something wrong was there were cases where children who were fathered by him unknowingly were in the same preschools and stuff. That's a dangerous slope because if they go through the same schooling system together...
[00:18:04] Will: There's a chance, yeah.
[00:18:05] Rod: Could be a little bit of a, you know, coming of age.
[00:18:10] Will: Did you have to?
[00:18:11] Rod: Yep.
