Johnathan Meijer, a 43-year-old Dutch sperm donor and the subject of the Netflix documentary “The Man With 1000 Kids,” has announced plans to take legal action to have the show removed from the streaming platform. Meijer stated that he is going to court to protect donor children and their families from what he describes as “the media’s desire to turn this into a spectacle.”
Meijer denied claims made in the documentary that he fathered 3,000 children worldwide, insisting the actual number is 550. “Anything beyond that is speculation,” he added.
Last year, a Dutch court ordered Meijer to stop donating sperm or face financial penalties in a case brought by the child protection charity Stichting Donorkind, due to the high risk of incest. Under Dutch regulations, fertility clinics are limited to producing 25 children per donor, but Meijer bypassed these guidelines by donating to at least 11 different clinics across the Netherlands. He also donated to the Danish sperm bank Cryos, which distributes sperm to private clients and does not impose a limit on the number of children a donor can father.
The court also found that Meijer had misled people he contacted through his YouTube channel and other media about the actual number of children he had fathered.
While Meijer claimed he stopped donating in 2019, he said he made exceptions for families who had already used his sperm. “I provided these parents with something they couldn’t get from a clinic,” he said. “The government didn’t assist them either, as there has never been a campaign to portray sperm donors in a positive light.”
However, lawyers Gerard Spong and Peter Plasman believe Meijer’s lawsuit has “no chance of succeeding.” They argue that the documentary serves the public interest by informing potential parents about Meijer’s activities.
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