23-year-old Maria, the first “donor child” to apply to the court to learn the identity of her sperm donor father in the Netherlands, managed to reach her biological father after a 4.5-year legal struggle.
Dutch father-daughter met for the first time under the supervision of experts and chatted for 2 hours. Both say they are happy to meet.
The male donor, a sperm donor at the Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, in the eastern Netherlands, signed a document that he could learn his credentials when his child turns 16.
However, after learning in 2004 that he had more than 25 donor children thanks to the sperm he donated, the Dutch man asked to remain anonymous. The donor male, who has been stated to be the father of 57 children so far, has been registered in the hospital’s system with the code “K34”.
The donor child named Maria, who lives in the town of Houten near the city of Utrecht, applied to the hospital when she turned 16 to find out the identity of her biological father. However, his father did not receive a positive response to his application, as he subsequently signed another document regarding the confidentiality of his information.
Maria, who applied to the Netherlands Artificial Fertilization Donor Data Foundation (SDKB), stating that her mother accepted the sperm due to the condition of revealing her name, returned empty-handed.
Noticing a loophole in the 2004 regulation banning anonymous sperm donation, the Dutch teenager started a legal battle unaware of his mother. Maria applied to the Arnhem Court in 2017, asking for her father’s identity to be revealed.
The court refused the request of Maria, who was the first donor child to file a lawsuit to learn the identity of her sperm donor father, and ruled that “K34″‘s information should be kept confidential.
However, the judge also demanded that the law be changed in the interests of children from donated sperm.
Some time later, the court in The Hague ruled that in a case brought by a group of donor children against SDKB and the fertility clinic, children have the right to learn the identity of the donor “unless there is a grave interest claim”.
Based on this decision of the Hague Court, Maria resumed her struggle. At the end of 2021, the Artificial Fertilization Donor Data Foundation backed out and announced that the biological father’s information would be given, provided no heavy-duty claims were made.
The donor father, to whom the foundation conveyed the situation, also said that he wanted to meet with Maria. Dutch father-daughter met a while ago under the supervision of experts from the Foundation for Parenting Issues (Fiom).
Maria told the AD newspaper, “It was a crazy moment. I was very nervous, but I was relieved thanks to the guidance of the Fiom experts.”
According to the young man, who emphasized that he had no expectations from his father, what he really wanted to learn was why he allowed his identity to be revealed first and then backed out.
The donor father took such a decision in 2009 when the hospital informed him that he had more than 25 children. The donor father turned out to be the father of at least 57 children, according to the hospital.
‘I can understand it’
“I think 25 children is too many, but I can understand that it is more frightening when you find out that you actually have more than twice as many children.
The donor father, in his written response to the newspaper, stated that he was happy to meet his daughter and said that he felt that he could do something for the donor children now.
Emphasizing that he did not want to hide his identity in the first place, the donor father said, “However, sometimes life doesn’t go as you expect. A period of my life was not suitable for contacting donor children.”
Both parties left the meeting, which lasted for 2 hours, satisfied. After 4.5 years of struggle, Maria expresses her feelings as follows:
“My donor father is no longer just a numerical code. His name is a person with a face. Thinking of him like that now gives me the peace I’ve been looking for for 4.5 years.”