The Man With 1000 Kids: True Story Behind A Serial Sperm Donor

Netflix has released another docuseries based on a real-life incident. The series, The Man With 1000 Kids, has created a buzz around the world ever since it was released on July 3. The series is based on a man who donated his sperm to many families across the world, defying the donor rules and regulations. It features interviews of couples who have been defrauded by the man and how they discovered the fraud. The man in question is Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who is a serial sperm donor and claimed that he donated sperm to about 250 families. However, the official record shows he is responsible for a thousand kids in his homeland, the Netherlands, alone.

Why Was Jonathan Meijer Considered A Perfect Sperm Donor?

Couples who were looking for the right donor to avoid the high prices and possibility of hiding the information of the donor in the fertility clinics found Meijer online. He was artistic and a teacher with good looks, and long hair, and often talked about philosophies, music and travel. Certainly, Meijer's profile, whether fake or not, attracted families and convinced them to opt for him as their donor. 

Meijer used to donate sperm out of the donation regulations and through traditional methods. He claimed that he donates sperm to help "women make their biggest wish come true." He also claimed that he would be involved in the parenting of the child as much as the mother wanted. 

The risks of unknown siblings made families anxious

However, after the expose of Meijer's fraud, parents were disillusioned and worried. All they could think of was how many siblings their kid had. The biggest worry was the possibility of consanguinuity. Children with the same genes, separated by birth and unknown of their blood relations, tend to attract each other. This phenomenon is termed as sexual genetic attraction which can result in accidental incest. 

As per the reports, Meijer has donated 1000 sperms within his homeland, the Netherlands. In addition to this, he travelled through various countries to donate sperm making a total of around 3000 offspring. 

It is also suspected that Meijer was involved in a group of sperm donors who mixed their semen and gave it to families without informing them to see who won. This cohort of sperm donors has been flouting the regulations of sperm donation that have set a limit to sperm donation. Meijer alone has been donating his sperm since 2007.   

The aim of The Man With 1000 Kids

The docu-series begins with interviews of the defrauded families- from a single mother and lesbian couples to a man who cannot reverse his vasectomy. It aims to question fertility clinics and industries targeting its regulations. Its extreme lens goes beyond the individual cases of people interviewed in the documentary and questions the ethical and logistical concerns.