The House of Representatives believes that abuses in donor conception should be independently investigated. This became apparent on Tuesday after a unanimously adopted motion submitted by Lisa Vliegenthart (PRO).
In recent years, new injustices regarding donor conception have repeatedly come to light. It became clear that gynecologists have systematically cheated on treatments for decades, in all kinds of ways. These abuses were usually discovered because people – sometimes unsuspectingly – took a DNA test at commercial databases and discovered that their genetic father was someone different than they thought.
There are also more and more cases of doctors using their own sperm or donor sperm when it was agreed to inseminate the intended father’s own sperm.
Eight healthcare providers at fertility clinics – seven gynecologists and one as yet anonymous laboratory technician – are now known to have used their own sperm, or different sperm than promised. But the Donorkind Foundation states that more doctors have been guilty of this.
Gynecologists used their own sperm when the intended parents were promised an anonymous donor, but more and more cases are becoming known of doctors using their own sperm or donor sperm when it was agreed to inseminate the intended father’s sperm themselves. In some other cases, semen from a man who came with a partner for IVF treatment was used for the insemination of another woman. Various doctors also used their own or donor sperm to conceive large numbers of donor children – up to more than a hundred.
Leiderdorp
The abuses known so far took place in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but it was recently announced that a clinic in Leiderdorp exceeded the then applicable standard of 25 children per donor until 2018. This created very large kinship groups. Since 2025, a standard of a maximum of twelve families per donor has been legally established. This maximum should, among other things, reduce the risk of inbreeding and unintended relationships between half-siblings.
Even today, kinship groups that are too large can still arise, for example because prospective parents obtain sperm from abroad. It is then complicated to determine in the Netherlands whether the donor remains within the standards of Dutch law.
“The question we have is: who was responsible for this?” Vliegenthart said. “And what lessons can we learn from this?” She wants “historical, legal, administrative, medical and experiential knowledge” to be brought together in a study. In this way, she hopes to provide insight into what went wrong and which interests and incentives played a role. “You can only look properly at the future if you have really looked at the past.”
In NRC professor and gynecologist Jan Kremer urged all male former gynecologists to donate their DNA to databases
The unanimous adoption of the motion underlines the need for more clarity about the history of donor conception. Donorkind Foundation, Fiom expertise center and Priamos, platform for sperm donors, previously advocated one national survey. In NRC Professor and gynecologist Jan Kremer not only called for research, but urged all male former gynecologists to donate their DNA to databases.
Adoptions, war crimes and slavery
Historian Adriejan van Veen, who researches the phenomenon, argued in favor NRC already for more research. “There are only two of us doing it: me and a junior researcher. The government should actually initiate this research, as with the De Winter committee. He has mapped it out how the history of long-distance mothers and long-distance children came about,” he said. Tens of thousands of unmarried mothers had to give up their children under pressure for years.
Such major investigations were also conducted into “practices with foreign adoptions”, into war crimes by the Dutch army and into the history of slavery. Van Veen believes that an investigation into abuses involving donor conception fits into that list.
In May, Sophie Hermans, Minister of Health, already responded to parliamentary questions from Diederik van Dijk (SGP) and Mirjam Bikker (Christian Union) about the willingness to conduct such an investigation. They wanted to know whether the minister also thinks it is time “to start a large-scale and independent investigation into abuses at fertility clinics in recent decades.” Hermans then responded that the cabinet is “considering” whether a national, historical study into donor conception in the Netherlands is possible and desirable – and if so, how that could take shape.
Vliegenthart is not surprised that her motion was adopted. “Left, right, progressive or conservative. Yes, we look at fertility care differently, but we all see the same abuses.”
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