Dutch Health minister calls on anonymous sperm donors to come forward

Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health is calling on anonymous sperm donors to make themselves known so that the children they fathered can find them. "Did you donate sperm and see how incredibly it affects people's lives if they do not know who there father is?" the Minister said, according to ANP. "Then you can do a second incredibly good deed by just making yourself known."

From 2004 all sperm, egg and embryo donors in the Netherlands are required to give their identity with their donation, so that future children can find them if they want to. This also helps enforce the limit of 25 children per donor and reduces the chance of donor child unwittingly getting into a romantic relationship with a sibling. Before that anonymous donations were possible in the country.

Changing the law retroactively to oblige sperm donors to register their identity, is impossible, Schippers said to the Council of Ministers on Friday, according to the news wire. But she is willing to help children who want to find their biological father.

An estimated 40 thousand children were fathered by anonymous donors in the Netherlands. A group of five such now adult children established a foundation called Donor Detectives, to help kids of anonymous donors find their fathers.