CV NEWS FEED // The controversy surrounding Netflix’s new investigative documentary series, “The Man With 1000 Kids,” highlights the disturbing reality about the fertility industry.
Netflix recently dropped a shocking three-part series which accuses Dutch native Jonathan Meijer of fathering 1000 children through “serial sperm donation.” According to an NBC News report, Meijer has denied the scope of the allegation, stating that he in fact has fathered “approximately 550 children, not 1,000” as the title of the series suggests.
The documentary series claims Meijer lied to parents about the number of children he had fathered through sperm donation, which Meijer adamantly denies.
“Technically I did not lie,” Meijer told NBC News in an email.“I followed the guidelines of every large commercial international sperm bank that does not inform the recipients about the amount of offspring one donor will produce.”
He continued: “I was doing a much better thing, I have the parents an estimated number, this was better and more info than they would ever get at any clinic.”
Meijer also stated in the email that he intends to sue Netflix for defamation.
The Netflix series “has had a devastating blow on the fertility industry as a whole,” wrote lifestyle commentator Leah Goulis at the Australian outlet, Kidspot about the documentary. “Couples who have been struggling to fall pregnant were now feeling a level of distrust.”
Goulis notes that questions regarding legal and ethical concerns related to the practice have exploded online.
NBC speculates in its report that Meijer’s “serial sperm donation” across sperm banks and through private donations could be “giving rise to a risk of inbreeding among half siblings who may have no idea they are related.”
To read CatholicVote’s explainer on Church teachings about IVF practices, click here.
