TV Review: The Man with 1000 Kids

When I first saw the title of Netflix's latest true crime docuseries, 'The Man with 1000 Kids', my mind went to action movies and blockbusters, not a chilling story exposing flaws in modern reproductive technology.

This limited series delves into the story of Jonathan Jacob Meijer, a man who is purported by this documentary to have fathered up to 1000 children through sperm donation. Meijer told sperm bank clinics and mothers he had only donated a handful of times, but in reality, travelled around the world visiting more and more sperm banks and more and more families.

This isn't Netflix's first portrayal of donor deception. 'Our Father', released in 2020, documented a fertility doctor who secretly impregnated patients with his own sperm (see BioNews 1147). However, this time, the focus shifts from doctors to an ordinary man who exploited the system for a decade without detection.

The legal loopholes of modern reproductive technology are painfully clear in the series, and it provides a disturbing, but crucial, insight into an industry that many, including myself, know little about. While this is an individual case within a vast and expanding field, the ethical concerns it raises both chilled and fascinated me.

The series begins in the Netherlands, and we are introduced to mothers and couples, who sought private donation to start their families. They wanted their donor and child to have contact from birth, however, most national clinics maintain donor anonymity until the child is 16 or 18, this led to them looking online for donation outside of the clinics.

One couple, Suzanne and Natalie, describe how Meijer seemed like the perfect donor to them. After an unsettling meeting with a scarred, bald donor, Meijer's good looks and long blond hair made him stand out. Other mothers and couples echoed their thoughts, seeing Meijer as the ideal donor.

It's only as the first episode draws to a close with the creation of a Facebook group connecting hundreds of mothers across the Netherlands and beyond, that the lies Meijer was hiding are revealed.

It's unsettling to see graphics of baby icons spreading across the globe and even more distressing to witness the genuine distress of mothers learning they have been deceived. One couple from Australia, Kate and Laura, describe their distress upon discovering their sons had hundreds of half-siblings, barely leaving their home for days.

While the emotional testimonies of the mothers and couples were impactful, the reconstruction scenes added an almost inappropriately comic tone. Shots of Jonathan's flowing hair with angelic sound effects and close-ups of his Birkenstocks seemed out of place in such a serious story.

This documentary introduced me to several new scientific concepts, made easy to understand by anchoring explanations to the real-life experiences of mothers. In the second episode, consanguinity and incest are highlighted as dangerous possible consequences of Meijer's actions.

One mother, Nicolette, describes her daughter's crush on a half-sibling and the documentary posits 'Luke and Leia syndrome' as a reason for this – fraternal twins, Luke and Leia, from Star Wars shared an intimate moment while unaware of their familial connection – giving rise to a psychological phenomenon describing how siblings not raised together often become attracted to each other due to their similarities. While the documentary doesn't explore the science or evidence behind this syndrome, mothers' fears, and descriptions of 'instant connections' between the half-siblings make it feel like a real and serious problem.

The second half of the documentary series focuses on the legal battle against Meijer for his serial sperm donations (see BioNews 1185). With the help of fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley and a front-page article in the New York Times, we see the case gain awareness and go to court in the Netherlands, where Meijer was banned from donating sperm and fined €1000 (£840) if he defied this (see BioNews 1188).

Revealing that warnings about the number of donations made by Meijer go back to 2017, a news article published in BioNews at the time popped up on the screen, reporting that Meijer had already contributed to the creation of over 100 children (see BioNews 915) and showcasing that PET (the Progress Educational Trust), has been on top of this case for seven years.

The series vividly portrays the challenges of this legal case, underscoring the documentary's ultimate takeaway: the lack of legislation and protection for patients within the field of modern reproductive technology. Assisted reproduction and IVF are still relatively new fields and this story is just one that makes it clear the law needs to catch up with the science.

A key flaw in the current system exposed is the absence of a way to track donors internationally. Cryos, the world's largest sperm bank, where Meijer was a donor, commented in the series that they are pushing for a global database of donors to prevent cases like this from happening again.

Although this documentary highlights significant and concerning flaws in this area of medicine, I did feel it gave an incomplete representation of the entire industry, which also accomplishes remarkable and life-changing work for many families. Indeed, this documentary might deter anyone considering IVF or sperm donation themselves.

But as a stand-alone account of a disturbing true story, Netflix has achieved a great deal. 'The Man with 1000 Kids' tells a complicated and extensive chain of events within three hour-long episodes, ensuring you feel and understand what the affected mothers and families went through.