Marleen van der Zanden from Gemert had seen men of all shapes and sizes while dating, but a potential life partner was not among them. So it hadn’t come from that person with whom she definitely wanted to grow old: a child. “During the summer holidays of 2019, I started thinking seriously. What options are there for becoming a single mother?”
That summer, at 32, Van der Zanden contacted a fertility clinic near her. There she was told that it would take one to two years before a Dutch sperm donor would be available. But, they said there, a Danish donor bank would have sperm available right away. “Once I made the decision, I didn’t want to wait at least another year for a donor. I also didn’t know how soon I would get pregnant.”
Over the past decades, Denmark has developed a vibrant economy around sperm donation. The offer is much larger than in the Netherlands. The two well-known Danish banks, Cryos and the European Sperm Bank, can ship seed, which they have first tested for hundreds of diseases, around the world within days.
From a tour of NRC twenty fertility clinics show that Dutch women are increasingly being treated with Danish semen. Because there is no shared public registration and no distinction is made everywhere between Dutch and foreign donors, no specific figures are available. The fertility center of the St. Antonius Hospital in the province of Utrecht, for example, sees that the number of inseminations with donor sperm has “steadily increased”. From 145 in 2018 via 185 in 2020 to 240 in 2021. The vast majority of the seed comes from Denmark.
“Because there is a shortage of donors in the Netherlands, we see national demand for foreign donor sperm increasing,” says Wouter van Inzen, head of the fertility lab at the Kinderwens Medical Center in Leiderdorp. “The number of available Dutch donors is decreasing,” says Nij Geertgen in Elsendorp in East Brabant, who now performs 70 percent of artificial inseminations with donor sperm from the two Danish banks. “But the desire to have children is not declining.”
Every year more children are born in the Netherlands by means of donated seed. Between 2011 and 2019, that number nearly doubled, from 771 to 1,449, according to the annual report of the Foundation for Artificial Insemination Donor Data. The demand for donor sperm comes from single women such as Marleen van der Zanden, also from lesbian couples and prospective parents with unsuitable sperm of their own.
Sound clips
Swiping on dating apps made way for Marleen van der Zanden to click on the European Sperm Bank website, where she spent three months sifting through the extensive profiles of donors. She had a choice of about thirty men. CVs of the donors can be viewed, as well as handwritten notes and children’s photos. Their voice can be heard in a sound fragment. Van der Zanden thought it was important that she and her son should have the same external characteristics. That worked. “My son looks just like me.”
Women have the Danish semen sent directly to the Dutch fertility clinic. That cost Marleen van der Zanden about 2,500 euros, the treatment is reimbursed from a subsidy scheme of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.
Although the Danish seed is welcomed with open arms by many Dutch fertility clinics, it is estimated that half of them do not use it – for example because they have ethical safeguards. There are about thirty clinics that perform treatments with donor sperm, and the clinics that are part of a large hospital in particular often do not do this with foreign donor sperm, according to the survey. Monique Moetar, gynecologist at Amsterdam UMC, says that the Danish online ‘shop’ is “entirely focused on the requirements and wishes of the intended parents”. “And less like that of the future child.”
Children often want to meet the donor, she says. “Our research has shown that the relationship between a donor child and his donor father can be complex, and if you are not well prepared for this as a donor.” Although Danish seed banks say they adhere to the Dutch regulations – such as extensive information to the donor – they do not have to follow them in all areas. Other experts point out that a foreign donor also comes with a language barrier.
In the Netherlands it has been illegal to donate anonymously since 2004. This is not prohibited in Denmark, but Dutch clinics do not perform treatments with anonymous Danish semen. Children must be able to know who their biological father is, the cabinet decided in 2004. It based, among other things, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. This does not mean that donors are obliged to meet their descendants, but that their identity is disclosed.
The University Medical Center in Groningen will also not cooperate if a woman comes to us with a foreign donor. “Because we think it is important that a future child should always be able to come into contact with their biological father,” says a spokesperson. “We doubt whether that is really possible with the Danish banks.”
Dutch laws and regulations
The European Sperm Bank adheres to all Dutch laws and regulations, says director Annemette Arndal-Lauritzen in the brand new branch in the heart of Amsterdam. They only send seed to Dutch clinics of men who donate non-anonymously, she says. They are informed that a child can contact them in a while. The European Sperm Bank then provides the personal data and can supervise the meeting.
They also adhere to the guideline of 12 Dutch families and 25 children per donor, she says. According to the position of the professional association for gynaecologists, the NVOG, Dutch clinics must include this maximum in the contract with the foreign sperm bank. That maximum should, among other things, prevent half-brothers and half-sisters from encountering each other in the relationship market.
But the same donor can also have descendants in one of the other sixty countries that European Sperm Bank serves, and that’s where things get messy, according to the Fiom Foundation, which specializes in issues of parentage, among other things. “If semen is sent to different countries, the number of children from a donor rises sharply, to tens to hundreds of half siblings. A situation that we want to avoid for the donor children involved,” Fiom writes on its website. “The agreements made in the Netherlands are thus circumvented.”
Also read: Doctor Karbaat is indeed a donor father of 49 children
The European Sperm Bank emphasizes that it adheres to all agreements. The average number of families per donor is also 25, says Arndal-Lauritzen.
The Erasmus MC clinic in Rotterdam does use Danish seed. Professor Joop Laven, head of the department of reproductive medicine, estimates that three quarters of the semen at their clinic comes from Denmark. “It is exceptionally good seed,” notes Laven. “Women get pregnant very quickly. The women who come with their own donor have yet to see whether that sperm has the right quality.”
No taboo
Why is the Netherlands not able to find enough donors and Denmark is? “People in Scandinavian countries see sperm donation as a kind of civic duty,” says Laven. “There is no taboo on that at all, as there may be in the Netherlands.” Until 2020, he was chairman of the Artificial Insemination Donor Data Foundation and he has done his “extremely best to give artificial insemination a reliable ‘white coat’ appearance. But then you suddenly have crook Karbaat or crook Wildschut and then that attempt is zero again.”
In recent years, sperm donors have been portrayed in a bad light several times after it became known that some Dutch gynaecologists, including Jan Karbaat and Jan Wildschut, inseminated women with their own sperm in the eighties and nineties and fathered dozens of children.
“In Denmark there is open talk that donating sperm should not be a taboo,” confirms Annemette Arndal-Lauritzen. “If you ask people why they are not blood donors, they ask themselves. It should be the same with sperm donation.” Donors receive 40 euros per donation from the Danish seed banks, with a maximum of 560 euros per month. This is comparable to the Dutch expense allowance.
Transparency
Last autumn, the European Sperm Bank opened a branch in the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam. The sperm bank is only announced on the small name tag next to the bell. Inside, on the top floor, it is bright, spacious and clean, like a luxury dentist. On the floor are bright white lamps in the shape of a sperm cell. Down a corridor are the well-insulated rooms for the donors, with a comfortable leather chair and a wall-mounted TV screen. “We want to radiate openness and transparency,” says Annemette Arndal-Lauritzen, who gives a tour.
The sperm bank also opened donation points outside of Denmark in the UK and Germany. In the Netherlands, not everything is geared towards the sperm donor, here donation usually takes place in the fertility clinic where women who want to have children also report. About a hundred men have registered in Amsterdam so far, says the European Sperm Bank. None of them went through the entire months-long screening process.
Also read: ‘As a sperm donor, I’m a little closer to the man I’m descended from’
“We do not see this as competition,” says a spokesperson for fertility clinic Nij Geertgen. “The European Sperm Bank has a lot of expertise and knowledge in this area. If the result is that more available Dutch sperm donors are available for Dutch patients, then that is highly desirable.”
“Of course it will be a competitor, but I don’t see it that way,” says professor Laven. “They may have a better system and more money to reach donors.” He thinks that Dutch donors are more traceable.
They call the invisible third in the life of Marleen van der Zanden and her son Odin a ‘donor’ – not a father. “When my son gets older and can talk, I’ll tell him what’s going on.” Van der Zanden thinks that Odin may have half-brothers and half-sisters in several countries in the future “perhaps intense”. It is not something she is currently working on much, although she is curious about the experiences of adult donor children who have already had contact with their donor. Odin is no exception in her environment: there are three other donor children at his shelter. When Odin is twelve, he may know his donor’s name. And when he’s sixteen, he can get in touch. Because Marleen van der Zanden was pregnant after just one treatment, there are extra straws of seed in the freezer at the clinic. “Perhaps for a second.”