Rijnstate hospital used IVF father's sperm to conceive child with another woman: report
A man who went to the Rijnstate Hospital with his wife for IVF treatment in the late 1980s recently found out that his sperm was used to conceive another child with another woman without his knowledge or permission. The attending doctor who froze the man’s sperm without permission and used it again three years later is also suspected of using his own sperm in fertility treatments, KRO-NCRV discovered while researching its documentary series Spoorloos onderzoekt: Sporen van een spermabank.
The man found out about the child in 2021 via a letter from a DNA researcher. “I didn’t believe it at first, but after doing the paternity test, I couldn’t ignore it,” he told the broadcaster. “My whole life has been turned upside down. It is unsettling not to know what happened to my sperm and whether more donor children were conceived with it.”
The donor child is also struggling with negative consequences. The man has a hereditary disease, which was passed on to her and her child. “The disease can lead to paralysis. I already experience symptoms and so does our young child. We will have to deal with this for the rest of our lives,” she said.
The doctor who treated the IVF couple is also suspected of having used his own sperm in fertility treatments in the 80s, according to KRN-NCRV. Ties van der Meer of Stichting Donorkind, an organization that represents the interests of people conceived through sperm donation, told the broadcaster that there is confirmation of this.
“If you are conceived by a self-donating doctor and your existence was supposed to remain a secret, you are in a difficult position,” Stichting Donorkind said. “Despite everything, many donor children hope that the doctor will still want to meet them. And therefore do not want to throw him under the bus.”
