The Man With 1000 Kids has sparked a strong reaction after landing on Netflix this week, opening up a debate about the wider issue of private sperm donors.
The true crime docu-series focuses on Jonathan Meijer, who fathered hundreds of children worldwide through both private donations and sperm banks, eventually leading to a ban in his home country of the Netherlands.
But he’s just one piece of the puzzle. One of the complexities highlighted is the challenge of addressing fertility fraud due to legal ambiguities and the ethical dilemmas surrounding private sperm donations.
This was raised by a sperm donor recipient, who’s now shared a warning after discovering the father of their child has also been donating privately.
Taking to Reddit, they wrote, “There’s a donor group on Facebook with men that are obsessed with donating. It’s called USA Sperm donors. They donate in person, ship all over the country, and naturally inseminate women.
“Some men even do this as a full-time job – from what I was told by my ex, he and others would charge women $300 plus each shipment.
“I found out the father of my child did this. He even made a Facebook group for all of his donor families. He would secretly sleep with these women to ‘naturally inseminate’ them while I was pregnant.
“To this day he refuses to stop. He was good friends with the other donors. They would donate behind their spouse’s back and refuse to add other donors to the group because that would take money from their pockets. It’s sickening.”
As was highlighted in The Man With 1000 Kids, unregulated donoring runs the risk of unintentional incest between the children.
“Accidental incest for all,” commented one in response to the post, while another said, “I understand why some parents wouldn’t talk openly with a child about this; but this would be why at some point – the child needs to be aware of and understand their conception.”
“We need more publicity about these sorts of things so parents know how important it is to have their donor kids DNA tested before they start dating so they can identify siblings and for the government to pass regulations regulating sperm donation,” added a third.
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“I follow a gal on TikTok that is involved in the political end of being a donor-conceived person. She’s constantly talking about sibling pods of 100+.”
Meijer has spoken out since the release of the Netflix doc and the growing concerns about accidental incest, arguing that what he does isn’t unethical.
“I’ve been a donor for 17 years now, and I thought about it, of course, every day, and it would be a problem if a donor was fully anonymous, because then the child will never have the option to find out,” he told LADbible.
But not every donor is open. As the OP pointed out in the comments, their donor allegedly “hides it from the mothers of his children.”
One Redditor replied that the “scariest part” in this case is that “the men you’re talking about seem to be donating privately.”
“A big part of the documentary was talking about the regulations that need to be set at fertility clinics and how they need to be enforced better,” they continued.
“But these dudes on these Facebook groups sending out their samples and sleeping with women to help them conceive are just terrifying.”
“How do you regulate that if they aren’t going through official channels?” they asked, to which another replied, “The world has been fundamentally altered and those kids are growing up. It’s like a timebomb.”
The Man With 1000 Kids is streaming on Netflix now. You can find out which documentary viewers are recommending to watch next, as well as the movies coming to streaming this month and the TV shows to add to your watchlist.