2023-05-01 15:29:19
It is a case of a “serial donor” which has challenged the whole world. A Dutch court on Friday banned a “mass donor”, the parent of at least 550 children, from donating his sperm to future parents, in a new scandal linked to fertility issues that shocks the Netherlands. Down. The man, identified by local media as Jonathan Meijer, 41, risks having to pay 100,000 euros each time he breaks the ban.
At the origin of this case, a mother and the Donorkind foundation (“Donor’s Child”) had initiated summary proceedings against him last month, noting that he continued to look for future parents on social networks. The Hague tribunal found it ‘sufficiently plausible’ that expanding the huge kinship network would have negative psychosocial consequences for the children, citing psychological issues around identity and fears of incest .
A limit set by the bioethics law
The question then arises of the supervision of sperm donation in France, when 3.3 million people are affected by infertility. Could such a situation, worrying in particular for reasons of consanguinity, happen in France? “Normally, she could not arrive in our country. The Cecos (study center and conservation of eggs and sperm) is extremely careful to avoid this sort of thing. You can imagine, we could fear that children with the same genetics will meet in 20 years…”, tempers the therapist and author of the book “Infertility: my guide to hope”, Déborah Schouhmann-Antonio contacted by Le Parisien.
French law makes it possible to avoid this kind of abuse. “The number of children from the same sperm donor is limited to 10 by the bioethics law, to rule out any risk of consanguinity for future generations”, recalls the biomedicine agency. A limitation which, however, was not in force before 1994.
A common file to avoid donations in several centers
For many years, there was in fact no common file of donors. From now on, the donor can only make a donation in one Cécos. ” From the decree August 25, 2022, implementation of the bioethics law, the biomedicine agency has files to verify the identity of donors”, confirms Marie-Xavière Catto, lawyer, specialist in bioethics law and lecturer in public law at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. It is now impossible to make a donation in each of the Cécos in France.
“At Cécos, the sperm is selected to match the recipients’ physical traits and to avoid the transmission of genetic diseases and medical antecedents. There is also a whole lot of very important psychological data, an awareness made by professionals for donors or recipients”, specifies the therapist, who sees more and more men affected by infertility.
Faced with this high demand, professionals cannot always meet the demand or respond quickly. According to the therapist, it would take more than a year to get a first appointment with the Cécos and about two years to receive her first gametes. “I have already seen desperate patients who go through completely illegal sites, sort of the “good corner of the sperm”. They manage themselves with a pipette or by sexual act. We are entering into something extremely shocking,” regrets Déborah Schouhmann-Antonio. In 2022, the Cécos counted 764 sperm donors and 990 egg donors. Thus, 962 children were born in 2020, thanks to donations.
“If you let such a huge kinship network arise with 550 to 600 people who have half-brothers and half-sisters everywhere, then you are acting wrongly,” said Gert-Mark Smelt, spokesperson to AFP. word of the Dutch court. The donor will also have to ask all the sperm banks where his semen was stored to destroy it. He is also forbidden to communicate with new future parents about his desire to give them sperm. “The donor deliberately misinformed the future parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past,” the court ruled. According to Dutch public television (NOS), Jonathan Meijer plans to appeal the judgment.
#sperm #donor #children #case #France