Serial sperm donors and the lack of regulations create danger and leave children searching for answers

Louise Mcloughlin discovered when she was 13 that she had been there conceived by a sperm donor. He said when his parents told him, “it was as if the rug had been pulled out from under my whole life.”

McLoughlin grew up in Dublin as an only child. When genetic testing became available at home in 2006, she signed up and discovered she had a half-sister. Not long after, there was another game.

“I just went, oh my God. We found a biological father,” she told CBS News. Within hours McLoughlin found his biological father's website and, later that day, called him.

“I know I caught you off guard,” McLoughlin told the man on the other end of the phone. “I have a million questions. You may have a million questions.”

His biological father said the call came out of the blue, but admitted he had donated sperm at a London clinic years ago. He said he thought the donation would remain anonymous, but told McLoughlin he was accepting his call.

“To hear this man say, 'You're welcome,'” McLoughlin told CBS News, “I feel guilty, because I know that's not a happy ending that everybody gets.”

McLoughlin now hosts a podcast called You're Like Me, which explores the lives of donor-conceived people. Others have experienced the discovery of hundreds of their siblings.

A recent Netflix documentary highlighted the story of another sperm donor from the Netherlands, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who fathered hundreds of children. Some of his contributions may have reached the United States.

Meijer told CBS News that she believed she had about 550 children, but admitted it could be more. The sperm banks he used do not have to let him know how many children his donations resulted from.

In 2023, a court in the Netherlands was blocked by a man, identified only as Jonathan M. under Dutch privacy lawsin donating sperm, saying he has given birth to about 550 children. The court noted that under national guidelines, donors are allowed to produce up to 25 children from 12 mothers, and the judge said the suspect “deliberately lied about” the amount of his donations “in order to persuade the parents to accept him as a donor.” .”

“Pregnant people have been raising the alarm about this for years,” McLoughlin said. “We see men who donate hundreds and thousands. They do it in small places. They do it within the same age range. So you keep the kids growing up knowing each other. or meeting when you're older, which is amazing, very dangerous.”

One of the dangers is that donor children may end up sleeping with relatives without their knowledge.

A Connecticut woman revealed last year that she unknowingly had a relationship with her father's brother in high school, and said her mother was a victim of fertility fraud as she was implanted by her doctor with his own sperm. More than 50 fertility doctors in the US have been accused of using their sperm to target patients.

“We fuel carefully, we drive carefully. However, here we are actually creating lives,” said Indiana Law Professor Jody Madeira. He is trying to get legislation passed in Indiana that would make interest fraud a felony.

Madeira said the US is like the Wild West compared to European countries in terms of regulating sperm donation.

“If you think that something like, a guy with a thousand children, donor-conceived children, could happen in Europe, then the chances are much higher in the United States,” he told CBS News.

There are many well-known sperm donors in America, including New Yorker Ari Nagal, who is said to have 165 children and counting.

There are no national databases that track sperm donations in America, and there is no legal limit on how many donations a person can make. There is also no requirement for sponsors to disclose genetic medical conditions that may affect fertility.

Madeira said it is possible to regulate sperm donation, but “in the United States, our cultural tendency prioritizes the market, and the industry, and the wishes of the parents. Whereas in Europe, they prioritize the rights of pregnant people.”

Louise McLoughlin said that the industry can improve, and said that if people are selected to donate they should be part of this program.

“We're not kids. We've been able to contribute to this conversation for a really long time, and we really haven't been allowed space… This journey of pregnancy, this journey of fertility treatment, doesn't end when you have a child. It doesn't end when you conceive, you know, all the way into the future when your child is grown into a person. , and – these are real world issues that have to be dealt with.”