A 41-year-old Dutch man named Johnathon Jacob Meijer is currently embroiled in a legal battle. His crime? He was too much of a daddy. “But that’s impossible!” you must be thinking. “Surely, Pedro Pascal would have been arrested long ago for this!” Well no, Pedro is a metaphorical daddy to many, but THIS MAN is a literal daddy to many more.
Meijer is … for lack of a better term, accused of fathering over 550 children from his own sperm donations across 13 different clinics primarily located in the Netherlands. He has also met with women privately and donated his sperm for a modest fee. But who is this man? How did he hoodwink so many people? And am I possibly related to him?
According to the New York Times, Meijer has a way of charming people. He met a women named Vanessa van Ewijk on the website Desire For A Child back in 2015. He was handsome, with blue eyes and lion’s mane of blonde hair. She described him as “gentle and kind and well-behaved.” He talked about music. He talked about life. He seemed like a total “boy next door.” But this boy has A LOT of next door neighbors.
Van Ewijik found this out the hard way.
She met a single mother over Facebook who had also used Meijer as a donor, and the woman gave her some … concerning news. In 2017, the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport conducted an investigation into Meijer’s donation “habits” and found that he had fathered over one hundred children in the Netherlands alone using fertility clinics. This count DOESN’T INCLUDE how many people he fathered through donations through websites.
Van Ewjik didn’t take this news well. After all, the Netherlands is a small country of 17 million people. To put that into perspective, 13.6 million people live in Tokyo alone. The odds of two half siblings fathered by Meijer unknowingly meeting are slim, but they are not zero. If these half-siblings happen to hit it off in a “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life” kind of way, then they could end up producing kids of their own—running the genetic risks of incest.
Meijer’s risk of causing “accidental incest” hasn’t slowed him down one bit. With is rather generous donation, he has reportedly has fathered children in Germany, Italy, Australia, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, Romania, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States. This modern day Genghis Khan all but considers his sperm a “gift” to the world. When Van Ewijik furiously confronted him over his sperm donations, he told her that he’s “just helping women make their biggest wish come true.” Because every woman dreams of a raising a child with 300 siblings.
Other women who have fallen victim to Meijer Khan’s shenanigans have been equally horrified. One of these mothers has partnered with a Dutch organization called Donorkind that represents children of sperm donation to levy a lawsuit at against The Giver. The woman claims that Meijer told her he had only fathered 25 children via sperm donation, which is ALREADY A LOT OF KIDS!? The goal of the lawsuit is to bar Meijer from donating his sperm to other clinics in the future, and to urge clinics to destroy any of his sperm that they are currently carrying.
Meijer is not the first “serial donor” to jerk off over 500 times into a cup. Another sperm donor in The Netherlands known only as Louis has fathered over 200 children over multiple donations. His kids currently have a group of over 70 going, where they communicate with each other to make sure that no one is accidentally West Virginia-ing a family member. So far, some of the group’s members have reported that they’ve accidentally swiped right on half brothers and sisters. I think they need to put “Louis’ kid” right under “Love music, food, and traveling” in their bio.
So why are these types of men so insistent on sharing their sticky gifts with the world? Money, a loose understanding of the definition of “philanthropism,” and the will to pass on their genes. I think they should keep their genes inside their jeans instead.
(featured image: Yana Tikhonova/Getty Images)
