Man Convicted of Donating Sperm Around the World Has His Own Netflix Documentary

In 2023, a 42-year-old Dutchman was tried in his country for donate sperm illegally around the world. His name didn’t make it into the media then. First it was JJM. Then Jonathan M. Today we know his name is Jonathan Jacob Meyers and we know much more information about your case thanks to Man 1000 childrena documentary about his case that was just released in Netflix.

His behavior came to light in 2018 in a Facebook group created by mothers who sufferedAt the time, he was believed to have fathered around 100 children worldwide, though mostly in Europe. Despite the efforts of these women to prevent others from falling into the same situation, family de Meyers continued to grow and at the time of the trial had at least 550 children.

It is expected that children will have today from several months to 15 years. The city suffered the most Haguein Holland, where mothers who have given birth to children through sperm donation fear that their children may become close to each other in the future and face problems of consanguinity. It is a very serious issue that has already been known, but which we can now learn more about in a documentary.

You cannot donate sperm indefinitely.

Each country has its own rules for gamete donation. In Holland, where it all began, no one can donate more sperm than 25 times. Other countries, such as Spain, are even more restrictive. Here, the number of donations is limited to the number of children produced, which can never be more than 6.

Most countries also have laws requiring donor sperm to be moved between clinics so that the donor’s children are distributed across different geographic locations. Thus, since donation is usually anonymousthe possibility of their reproduction among themselves is reduced to a minimum.

Meyers knew all this. So he decided to start donating sperm fake names. Moreover, while the company started doing this in assisted reproduction clinics, under the guise of legality, it later began advertising online in a much more covert manner. As a result, it is estimated that he has at least 550 children, although the number may be higher.

For this reason, after the trial, he was prohibited from donating sperm again under threat of paying a fee. fine of 100,000 euros if you do it again, even just once.

Why is this so dangerous?

When sperm fertilize an egg, each sperm contributes one of the homologous chromosomes of the pair. In the case of humans, We have 46 chromosomes divided into 23 pairswhich contain one maternal and one paternal chromosome. These chromosomes contain the same genes, but may have different alleles. That is, there may be two different versions of the same gene. These alleles may be dominant or recessive. As the name suggests, the dominant type dominates the recessive one. Therefore, if there is a dominant allele and a recessive allele of the same gene in a pair, the information from the dominant one wins. Obviously, the same thing happens if both are dominant. For recessive information to be passed on, two recessives must be present together.

Some diseases are recessive inheritanceSo it must happen that both parents contribute this recessive allele. The likelihood of this happening increases significantly if the parents are related. Especially if they are brothers. In these cases, a phenomenon known as blood relationswhich significantly reduces genetic variability and increases the likelihood of accumulation of mutations that can cause disease.

Therefore, a person cannot donate sperm multiple times. Their children, given the lack of knowledge about who their biological father is, can have children together and eventually have a case of consanguinity. This is something that is often seen in royal families from all over the world, especially in the past when members of the same family were more likely to marry.

So what now?

It’s too early to tell what will happen to Meyers’ children. Hopefully, now that what he did is known, the families affected will be careful not to let their children get sucked into something similar. But sometimes it’s hard to open the doors of love. And even harder for a man who secretly donated sperm for more than a decade.