At least ten Dutch fertility doctors used own sperm to impregnate women

With the help of the Donorkind Foundation, donor children have found ten fertility doctors in the past five years who used their own sperm to impregnate women without the women's knowledge or permission. Some cases, like fertility doctors Jan Karbaat, Jan Wildschut, and Jos Beek, have been extensively in the news. But the foundation helped keep others deliberately quiet, Esther de Lau of Donorkind Foundation said to NU.nl.

The foundation helps children born through sperm donation find their fathers in commercial DNA databases. In the past five years, they found 150 to 200 men who together fathered thousands of children.

According to De Lau, media attention for abuses by men like Karbaat, who fathered at least 81 children by using his sperm without his patients' knowledge, has negative sides. "As a donor child, you don't want the whole world to have an opinion about your donor father. Because you are the person who has to relate to that person. Being the doctor's kid is an extra disadvantage."

Which is why the foundation and donor children together decided to keep some other doctors guilty of these abuses out of the media. This allows the children to remain in control and enables them to first sort out for themselves whether they want contact with the man, any siblings, or other family members, De Lau said.

A plus side to the media attention is that it generates awareness. "Every time a doctor is in the news, we get a flood of applications from donor children," De Lau said. It also prompts parents to talk to their children. "Everyone has the right to know who his or her parents are."