By Steven McIntosh, Entertainment Journalist
A Dutch sperm donor who fathered hundreds of children has called a new documentary about him “misleading”.
A Netflix docuseries, premiering Wednesday, focuses on women who have had children using Jonathan Jacob Meijer’s sperm.
A woman said She felt “betrayed, sad and angry” after discovering how many other children Meijer had fathered.
But Meijer told the BBC the documentary was misleading because it focused on those who were unfortunate rather than the many families he said were grateful.
In response to the interview, his executive producer called the claim that the majority of families are happy “completely false.”
In the interview, Meijer also said he saw “absolutely nothing wrong” with fathering hundreds of children.
The 43-year-old declined to be interviewed for the Netflix documentary, but he spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Wednesday.
“They deliberately called (the documentary) The Man with 1,000 Children, when it should have been called ‘The Sperm Donor Who Helped Families Conceive With 550 Children,'” he told the programme.
“So they deliberately sought to deceive and mislead from the very beginning.”
He continued: “I think Netflix did a great job of selecting five families (who are unhappy) out of the 225 families I’ve helped, and they (the other families) will definitely tell you something else.”
Netflix told Woman’s Hour it would not comment on Meijer’s interview, but Natalie Hill, the documentary’s executive producer, spoke to the programme.
“I’ve spent the last four years talking to families who have been affected by Jonathan’s lies. I’ve personally spoken to 45 or 50 families,” she said.
“Fifty families have come forward to the court about his lies and have begged the judge to stop. So this platform where Jonathan continues to talk about how it’s a handful of women is completely false.”
Meijer has been a donor for 17 years. In many cases, he has donated privately, meaning he has been able to deal directly with families rather than going through a private clinic.
Some women who chose him as a donor say he did not tell them how many other children he had fathered.
“I’m in conflict with her because he told me at the time he was donating to five families,” one mother, Natalie, told Woman’s Hour.
“In 2021, I read an article in a newspaper that it was hundreds of families. That’s why I am torn and I don’t agree with his methods.”
Some women he donated to described him as a “narcissist,” while others suggested he posed a risk to public health.
Asked whether he thought his estimate of 550 children was a lot, Meijer said: “That’s for a normal man, but not for a sperm donor.
“For a sperm donor, it’s quite common. They go up to hundreds of children. They (the clinics) ship the donor sperm to several countries.”
“Outdated viewpoints”
The docuseries received widespread coverage before its launch.
In a four star review, Vicky Jessup of the Evening Standard described it as “a blood-curdling story: a cautionary tale about the perils of the modern age.”
“It’s definitely a fascinating film, albeit in a very dark way – and the revelations about sperm donation (and how Meijer does it) are horrifying,” she said.
Anita Singh of the Telegraph said: “The filmmakers tried too hard to turn this into a Tinder Swindler-style story of women getting revenge, and there’s a late twist. But even without that, it’s a decent story that raises bigger questions about the gifting industry.”
Some women have expressed concern that their child might unknowingly meet and form a relationship with a half-sibling in the future.
Mother Natalie said: “The biggest worry is that these children will meet and fall in love with each other because they recognise something in each other and are not aware that they come from the same donor father.
“That’s the biggest risk I see because he talks about being an open and known donor, but he’s donated to many clinics around the world, and not all clinics share the same values of openness and honesty with children.”
Meijer pushed back on that suggestion, telling presenter Nuala McGovern that the concern was based on cases where anonymous donors had been used, while his identity was readily available.
“I can assure you that there are cheap DNA tests available now, and I am registered in the DNA database, so they can find out,” he said.
“Also, parents will tell their children that they are donor-born. Since they all know my identity, even if they meet, they can simply ask, ‘Are you a donor child?’ and secondly, ‘Is your donor father Jonathan?’
“We must stop projecting these outdated visions onto these children. They are very aware that they are children born from a gift. They know how to react.”
Trial
Meijer was banned from donating sperm in the Netherlands in 2017 after it was revealed he was the father of 102 children born from donations made at 11 clinics across the country.
He continued to donate to other countries until 2023, when a woman and a foundation that supported her filed a civil lawsuit against Meijer, arguing that he was increasing the risk of incest for her children.
In his testimony, Meijer admitted to fathering between 550 and 600 children. However, the court said he could have fathered as many as 1,000 on several continents.
The judge eventually banned Meijer from donating his sperm to new parents and said he would be fined 100,000 euros (£85,000) per donation if he did so.
Meijer told Woman’s Hour: “I already stopped giving to new beneficiaries in 2019. I only donated to my siblings. The lawsuit was basically pointless because I had already stopped, and the lawsuit didn’t prohibit me from helping existing families.”
Asked if he saw a problem with his actions, Meijer said: “I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. I think it’s very good. I see that they (the children) have a lot of friends, they meet each other.
“I can’t speak for them, but from what I’ve seen, they are very happy to have so many siblings. Because they (the half-siblings) meet on donation days, they meet up and go on vacation together.”
Speaking about his reasons for becoming a sperm donor, Meijer said: “The misconception is that I had a plan. I was in college and had a friend who was infertile.
“It had a big impact on me because I saw the effect it had on her life. So I started to look into it… and I started to wonder if I could be a donor.”
When McGovern asked Meijer if he understood how women felt, he replied: “Why should they be uncomfortable? That’s what they chose.”
“If you want exclusivity, you go to the clinic, you pay 10,000 euros and then your donor is exclusive. If you don’t want to share as a mother, why did you choose this path?”
Defending the documentary series, Hill told Woman’s Hour: “The documentary series, which we spent a lot of time making and carefully researching, contains commentary and research from a number of families around the world. And to suggest that he knows all of these families and that they are all happy is not true.
“In the series, we can see how Jonathan was able to lie in the face of the lack of a legal framework and the lack of transparency in fertility in general. And the consequences for families are really well highlighted in the documentary series.”
In a report, The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said The Netflix series “can be stressful and upsetting for families of some donor-conceived children.”
Speaking to Radio 4, Rachel Cutting, director of compliance and information at the HFEA, added: “Fertility treatment in the UK is highly regulated, and that’s not always the case globally… In the UK we have a limit of 10 families.
“But what can happen is that donors can donate outside the UK. So while we have control in the UK, the HFEA has no jurisdiction outside the UK, or over what happens with private donations. That’s why we encourage women to go to a clinic that is accredited by the HFEA.”
