Last year, Meijer was ordered by a Dutch court to stop, having been found to have fathered as many as 600 children in the Netherlands since 2007. Some mothers of his offspring, based as far away as Australia, believe the true number globally is over 1000 (although Meijer contests this).
For women like me, a solo mum who bought sperm from a Danish sperm bank to conceive my now four-year-old son, the series is particularly alarming. The truth is, with no global oversight of donors’ activities, clinics have to take them at their word about where they’re donating – and we buy their sperm on faith.
But while it undoubtedly exposes a need for clinics to improve their vetting processes for prospective donors, the programme throws an even starker spotlight on the rise of ‘private’ sperm donation – DIY arrangements that take place outside regulated clinics, via Facebook groups, Reddit and dedicated websites such as Pride Angel and Pollen Tree – and the potential pitfalls of the practice.
The cost of fertility treatment at clinics has soared in recent years, and the cost-of-living crisis has prompted increasing numbers of desperate single women and LGBT+ families – the majority of whom don’t qualify for NHS treatment – to seek donor sperm online. In the UK, it’s illegal to pay donors more than reasonable expenses, although some do demand money for their services, and if it’s less than treatment at a clinic, they can find plenty of women happy to pay.
The Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, or HFEA, which regulates donation in the UK, warns against these private arrangements, which have none of the protections offered by licensed fertility centres. ‘Anything outside of that won’t be covered by legislation, regulations and guidance,’ says Rachel Cutting, the HFEA’s director of compliance and information.
‘Sperm donation is a wonderful thing – it gives people the opportunity to have their own families, and we don’t want that to be discouraged. But we would strongly encourage people, where possible, to go to a licensed centre, because it’s a regulated environment which ensures donors, patients and any future children are protected by carrying out rigorous health tests, ensuring legal parenthood consents are in place and offering everyone involved counselling.’
I felt that protection throughout my own experience of donor conception. When I began the process of choosing a sperm donor in 2018, it’s fair to say I was trepidatious. I’d always hoped to have a baby with a man I loved, not an anonymous stranger whose profile I found online.
But actually, sifting through the options on the website of Cryos, a sperm bank in Denmark, was surprisingly life-affirming. There were photos of the donors as babies, descriptions of their hair and eye colour, weight and height, and whether they liked reading or football. There were letters they’d written to women like me, filled with a kindness and generosity I found profoundly touching. The donor I chose had also recorded a spoken message, explaining why he wanted to help someone he’d never met fulfil their dream of motherhood.
I found the regulations in place reassuring at a vulnerable time. Each donor is screened for infectious diseases such as HIV and hereditary diseases, and for the quality of their sperm. In one recent post on a Facebook sperm donation group, an anonymous user from the UK said she had caught HIV from the donor she had found in the group. ‘I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,’ she wrote, ‘but I’m sure you all understand the feeling of desperation because you want a child so badly.’