TV Review: Zembla – What are the consequences of the global trade in donor sperm?

Have you ever stopped to consider what it must be like to have 17 or more half-brothers and sisters? Or what it would mean if you could never find out where half of 'you' came from? A recent episode of Dutch investigative journalism programme Zembla explores exactly these questions, in an unassuming and deeply human way. Through a series of frank interviews with donor-conceived children and their parents, doctors, advocates and donors, it exposes the hidden costs of the international sperm donation industry on the lives of those most affected.

The episode opens with a technology-marvelling tour of Cryos International in Denmark, one of the world's largest sperm banks. Watching it, you feel the programme is not a dramatised depiction of isolated incidents where one man purportedly fathered 1000s of children (see BioNews 1257), but a factual insight into how everyday people's wishes for a family are fulfilled. That is, until the bank director, Ole Schou, makes a jarring remark comparing their global reach to that of the Vikings 'plundering and raping... but more civilised now.' A statement that sets the tone for what then emerges: a system where commercial interests have quietly overtaken the rights of donor-conceived people.

From Denmark, the programme shifts to the Netherlands, where we meet parents who believed they were making informed, protected choices when ordering sperm from abroad online. One mother describes the process as akin to placing an order on a shopping website – selecting traits for height, hair colour, eye colour – only to later discover that promises of traceability and sibling limits were, in her words, 'a sham'.

This is reiterated by donor-conceived children, including Marit, who had counted down the years until she turned 16, when Dutch law entitled her to identifying information about her donor. What she received was a single name, with no address or means of contact. The impact on Marit was profound: her schoolwork deteriorated, her physical and mental health suffered, all while fruitlessly searching online for any trace of the man whose DNA she carries.

The episode quickly homes in on the core of the issue with foreign donors: the lack of coordinated international regulation. One bioethicist bluntly notes that commercial interests and regulatory governance 'don't make sense together – at all'. This void results in a single donor theoretically being able to father hundreds of children across dozens of countries, with no oversight. While countries may cap the number of families a single donor can help – 12 in the Netherlands – there is no global limit, no cross-border register and no requirement for sperm banks to track usage across nations. More stark is the resultant high rates of unfindability, where inconsistent national rules on what information donors are required to provide about themselves makes tracking them down often near-impossible for their children.

The programme's power lies in how it presents multiple perspectives without imposing a moral framework. Everyone speaks plainly and sometimes uncomfortably about what they know and their role in the system. A Dutch fertility doctor acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding foreign donors while continuing to rely on them; a Danish donor reflects, almost matter-of-factly, on not knowing how many children he has helped create; and Esther de Louw of the Dutch Donor Child Foundation describes her ongoing search for half-siblings, each reunion filled as much with care as with caution and emotional cost. By juxtaposing these accounts without overt judgment, the programme makes the systemic failures impossible to dismiss as they develop from ordinary, sincere testimony.

As someone considering using a sperm bank to conceive a child with my partner, the programme made me fundamentally rethink that decision. The imbalance of international regulation versus commercial interest, and the absence of safeguards for children's rights to know their origins both gave me pause for thought. However, as this programme primarily focuses on Cryos International, I would have been interested to hear from other sperm banks to find out whether they operate in the same way. I found the programme left me wanting for more data. How common is it to be unable to find a donor? How many donor-conceived people are grappling with dozens – or hundreds – of half-siblings? The filmmakers acknowledge that exact figures don't exist, which is itself part of the problem. Some estimates from other investigations have revealed that the Netherlands alone has over 85 'mass donors' with 25 children or more (see BioNews 1286).

Legal experts featured in the programme argue that the current situation may constitute a violation of children's human rights, and that the Dutch state has an obligation to intervene. The Donor Child Foundation is now preparing to take that argument to court.

The episode closes with de Louw's words ringing in my ears: 'This isn't about cultivating plant seedlings – this is about human lives.'

For people interested in the human side of donor conception and the ethics of commercial fertility services, this episode is essential viewing. It asks prickly questions of an industry that has, until now, operated largely in the shadows – and makes a compelling case that donor-conceived people deserve far better.