Brussels fertility clinic under investigation for sperm donor scandal

The Brussels public prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the fertility clinic at Brussels University Hospital (UZ Brussel) for violating sperm donor regulations, and it has since come to light that more fertility clinics may also have been doing the same.

Key Takeaways:

• Earlier this year, it was discovered that a Danish sperm donor exceeded the six children permitted to be conceived per donor.

• The donor carries a cancer gene which may have been passed down to his children.

• Prosecutors are now investigating several fertility clinics.

• Belgium, along with several other countries, recently called for stricter limits on sperm donation in the European Union (EU).

The Details:

According to VRT, prosecutors are investigating UZ Brussel when it was revealed that a sperm donor had fathered 55 children through 39 women, drastically exceeding the Belgian limit of six children maximum per donor.

The donor was found to carry a cancer gene which may have been passed down to his children. UZ Brussel said in response that it would be ending its relationship with the European Sperm Bank (ESB). It appears to be the same donor who was confirmed to have passed down this gene to at least 10 children; if so, this man has fathered more children than just the 55 through UZ Brussel.

The hospital refused to give any additional information, beyond a short statement, saying, “We are cooperating in a spirit of complete transparency.”

Yet it turns out that UZ Brussel isn't the only fertility clinic to have violated donor regulations. The Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) announced two more fertility clinics are under investigation; one in particular has found that seven women were inseminated with sperm from the same donor. For now, though, the FAMHP has not referred the investigation to the prosecutor's office, but just issued a warning.

Why It Matters:

Earlier this year, EU ministers from Sweden, Belgium, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain all called for limits in sperm donation, correctly noting that the fertility free-for-all currently in place can do serious harm to donor-conceived children. Even when some countries have limits in place, there are none about cross-country donations, allowing more children to be conceived.

While some donors are perfectly fine with having large numbers of children, others are completely unaware, ending up shocked and horrified to find out they have fathered more than just a few children as promised. It has become so widespread that officials have begun publicly worrying about accidental incest.

Around the world, the fertility industry is extremely unregulated, leading to widespread abuses. Some donors have fathered hundreds, if not thousands, of children, and would-be parents have been able to obtain children, despite a history of sexualizing children, or an actual criminal record - including numerous instances of sex offenders.

The Bottom Line:

Children have been turned into products to be bought and sold by the fertility industry, as opposed to the human beings they are — and donor-conceived children are well aware of this reality. One Harvard Medical School study found that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe it to be unethical and immoral, and it is long past time for their concerns to be acknowledged and acted upon.

“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one donor-conceived person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage?”