A sperm donor, who used fake names to father more than 60 children in Australia, has been exposed after the new parents in a get-together noticed that their babies look similar. The man, whose identity has not been revealed yet, used four different aliases to donate sperm to members of the LGBTQ+ community, The Mirror reported.
The clients of the sperm donor met at a get-together for new parents and were shocked to find similarities between their kids.
To investigate the matter, the parents inquired about the man from IVF clinics across Australia. Dr Anne Clark of Sydney-based ‘Fertility First’ said the man rendered his services to her clinic only once while she claimed he used informal Facebook groups for multiple sperm donations.
“We know he got gifts, holidays – all a complete criminal offence. The reason he was discovered is he wasn’t fully Caucasian,” Dr Clark was quoted as saying by The Mirror. Like many other countries, receiving or paying ‘gifts’ for human sperm is an offence in Australia under the Human Tissue Act, with a jail term of up to 15 years.
But informal donations are on a rise because of online forums like Facebook groups connecting donors and childless parents.
In the UK, where also it is illegal for sperm donors to receive payment for their donations as per the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), a donor can receive a maximum of £35 ( ₹3,480) for each clinic visit. The authority has also mandated that a person’s sperm donation can be distributed to a maximum of 10 families, while there is no set limit to the number of children born to each family.
