A 43-year-old from the Netherlands said on a TV chat show that he was taking legal action against the streaming platform Netlix over its show "The Man With 1,000 Kids," describing it as "sensationalist."
Jonathan Meijer claimed the show had slandered him and the hundreds of families he had helped to create, among other things by overstating how many children his donated sperm had been used to create.
The show's title picks the round number of 1,000 and at one point says the real figure could be as high as 3,000, which Meijer said was incorrect, despite acknowledging that his own tally might not be complete.
"Five hundred and fifty, that's the number I know for sure. Anything above that is just speculation," he said on the "Eva" talk show on public broadcaster NPO 1 with Eva Jinek late on Tuesday. "That's why I have started a case to fight against these lies."
He said he wanted the documentary taken down from Netflix's website to protect the children from media trying to make a "spectacle" of the case, saying they were "being recognized in the street."
Court ordered he stop last year, Dutch guidelines say maximum 25 children per donor
Meijer made the headlines in the Netherlands and abroad last year when a court in The Hague ordered him to stop donating. It threatened him with a fine of up to €100,000 (roughly $110,000) per case if he failed to comply. That case settled on a minimum figure of 550 children but acknowledged the possibility of more.
Clinical guidelines in the Netherlands say a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 different families, to limit the risks of incest for the offspring. However, because there is no central register for sperm donors, he was able to bypass these rules in a number of ways like going to multiple clinics.
The court found that Meijer had misinformed families about past donations, many of which were also arranged on internet forums rather than via fertility clinics, giving the impression not all of the sperm was his.
This meant the children were "part of a huge kinship network with hundreds of half-siblings they did not choose." The court thought it "sufficiently plausible" that this could cause psychosocial consequences for the children like identity problems and fears of accidental incest.
Meijer said during Tuesday's appearance that he became interested in the concept of sperm donation as a young man when he was close to people with infertility who wanted children. He started donating in 2007. He said that as of 2019, he had stopped donating sperm, except to families that wanted a second or third child with his help.
The show sought comment from two prominent Dutch lawyers, Gerard Spong and Peter Plasman, who said they believed his case to be "completely hopeless." They said the show served a clear public interest, among other things informing people seeking a sperm donation in the future about the case.
They also said Netflix had done thorough research with sources who went on the record, and that Meijer had refused his right to reply and offers to cooperate.
"I do not want to cooperate with such a shady company," Meijer said in a sometimes heated exchange with the moderator. "I can share everything myself on my YouTube channel."
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A group of families learn the charismatic man they had trusted is the sperm donor to hundreds — or perhaps thousands — of other children across the world.