Woman's Hour - Jonathan Meijer interviewed on fathering over 550 babies by sperm donation; women impressionist artists

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

A new series has been released this morning (3 July) on Netflix. It is called Man with 1,000 Kids, and Netflix is billing it as the true story of Jonathan Meijer, a man accused of travelling the world, deceiving women into having his babies - via sperm donation - on a mass scale. Nuala talks to Jonathan Meijer, the sperm donor, to mums Natalie and Suzanne, who had a baby conceived with Jonathan’s donor sperm, to Natalie Hill, the executive producer who pitched the original idea for these films to Netflix and to Rachel Cutting, director of compliance and information at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s independent regulator of fertility treatment.A new report from AutoTrader has found that there's a stark gender divide when it comes to going green with your vehicle choice. Hyper-masculine marketing, highly technical jargon and anxieties around running out of charge are just some of the reasons they give on why women feel excluded from making the switch to electric vehicles. Nuala talks to Erin Baker, who is the editorial director at AutoTrader and author of the report. It’s 150 years since the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874. The artists involved included Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne, and just one female artist was included in that first exhibition, Berthe Morisot. But women artists were involved with Impressionism, and 150 years on, the National Gallery of Ireland is holding an exhibition to put their work front and centre. The director, Caroline Campbell, joins Nuala McGovern to talk about the exhibition, Women Impressionists, and the four female pioneers who were integral to the artistic movement.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Laura Northedge

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Well, this morning in his first broadcast interview in the UK, Jonathan Meyer, who has been dubbed the man with a thousand kids, in a new Netflix series, he tells me why he thinks being a sperm donor to hundreds of children is not that unusual, nor should it cause concern for anyone in 2024.

We're also going to hear from mothers who use Jonathan's sperm to have a child who passionately disagree. Also today, why women are less confident than men in switching to electric vehicles and a new exhibit of impressionist artists, all women. Now, if you want to react to anything that you hear in this upcoming programme, the number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website.

For WhatsApp or a voice note, that number is 03700 100 444. I look forward to hearing from you. Let us begin. A new series has been released this morning on Netflix. It is called The Man with 1000 Kids. And Netflix is billing it as the true story of a charming Dutchman, Jonathan

Meyer, who is accused of travelling the world deceiving women into having his babies via sperm donation on a mass scale. Now, why do Netflix say deceiving? Well, it's because they say Jonathan donated sperm to so many clinics and private donors that he helped create hundreds of biological children on a level unbeknownst to the mothers that were involved. Private donations are when men donate sperm directly to women without going through a clinic. It could be a friend, it could be somebody they find online.

And this morning I'm joined from the Netherlands by mums Natalie and Suzanne, who are a couple and had a baby conceived with Jonathan's donor sperm privately. Also in the studio is Natalie Hill. She's the executive producer who pitched the original idea for these films to Netflix and Rachel Cutting,

director of compliance and information at the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, often known as HFEA. That is the UK's independent regulator of fertility treatment. Now, yesterday, I spoke to Jonathan Meyer, the sperm donor that is in this series. It's his first broadcast, a UK broadcast interview. I'll bring it broadcast, a UK broadcast interview. I'll bring it to you in just a moment. But why don't we start with a little clip from the series. Here are some of the parents describing what they felt like after they had given birth to their babies.

And Jonathan was the donor. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm pregnant. What do I do? The second time I knew when he drove away, I felt like a butterfly or something going up in my body. And I was like, this one, this one is gonna stick. Nine months later, I had a baby boy. Loveliest baby in the world.

I was so, so, so, so, so happy. Nine months later, we get a beautiful daughter. Joining me on the line from the Netherlands are Suzanne and Natalie. We're going to be hearing a lot from them a little later. But I just want to start briefly with you, Natalie, and welcome, welcome to Women's Hour. Jonathan Meyer is the sperm donor that you use privately. I understand you found him online.

And you share that joy that we were hearing there in that clip with that lovely child that you have. But you are conflicted about Jonathan now. Can you tell me in a sentence or two why? I'm conflicted because he told me back then that he was donating to five families. And it turned out in 2021, I read the article in the newspaper, that it was not five families that he has donated to, but hundreds of families. And that's why I'm conflicted. And that's why I don't agree with his methods.

And that's why I don't agree with his methods and that's why I did work on this documentary. Well, we're going to hear more from Natalie. We're going to hear more from Suzanne and from my guests that are here in studio with me. But I want to go to the interview that I did with Jonathan, as I mentioned, his first broadcast interview in the UK. And I began by asking him what he thought of the title of the Netflix series.

They deliberately chose to call it The Man with Thousand Children, whilst it should be The Sperm Donor that helped conceive families with 550 children. So already from the start, they're deliberately deceiving and misleading. But yeah, it's Netflix. So what else could I expect? It's 550. Is that the number? Yeah, that's according to my records. There could be a few more, but that's because the Danish clinic, Cryos International Clinic,

will not share the amount of offspring that they conceive with their donors. So they keep it hidden. But it could be like 50 more, I assume. How do you keep your records? I have them stored in a database somewhere in a very safe place. So it cannot be like burned or it's not in my house or anything like that. 550, that's a lot of kids. It is for a normal man, but it's not for a sperm donor.

For a sperm donor, it's quite common that they have, they go up into the hundreds of children. They will ship the donor semen to multiple countries, like maybe up into the tens, and they will have, each country will have its max. For example, in the Netherlands, they have a guideline of 25 children. But it's very loose because it's a guideline. So I know for a fact that one Dutch clinic, for example,

conceived 35 children, only one clinic. So it's not so strict as people think. But what you are saying is that basically you don't think it's that unusual for a sperm donor to father hundreds of children. Absolutely. It's common practice in all the international clinics. And I said it in the court case. I said, I'm not really that special. I'm just like a common donor, only I am visible because I donated also privately. But I could just go to any big clinic and donate up until maybe 1,000 children, really 1,000 children.

Tell us a little bit about you because I want to kind of get to the nub of why you are doing what you are doing, even though you say it's common practice. You've been a musician, high school teacher, you've worked at cryptocurrency. Why did you want to become a sperm donor? Well, the misconception is that I had some sort of plan or setup.

Basically, I was in college and there was a friend of mine. We studied together and he was infertile. He discovered this in this moment in time we were both young but it had a big impact on me because i saw the effect that it had on his life he really got depressed and he told me about possible options for him and his uh back then girlfriend like adoption foster parents and sperm donation and with the latter I started to be interested in because I was thinking wow that's you know it's it's a very interesting thing to give somebody what they're longing for and I start to think for like well could I be a donor could I be someone that helps others with creating a family and yeah so then i first started at a dutch sperm clinic because i

thought it was safe you know they do checkups i get tested my my semen get tested if i'm even fertile i passed all the tests semen was a good quality and later on i felt more at ease I felt like okay I'm I'm helping out at a clinic but I heard also that there were websites where you could meet privately and I was thinking wow that is something that is even more beautiful because then you can really I was missing the the human aspect it was it felt a bit too clinical to me. You go to the clinic and you help, you're in a room and you're just delivered and then and which is fine. I totally agree with it but... So what were you

trying to get from that human connection? Well, first I realised that there were waiting lists for the clinics so I knew that I would be really a help to people and is that at the heart of it Jonathan because I'm just getting to know you is it that you wanted to be wanted to be needed well it's very difficult it's just such a big part if you are a donor there's

multiple reasons why somebody becomes a donor it's not just one reason it's like a whole wafer of like many different aspects that makes it appealing to be a donor and one of them is indeed if you help privately that you are indeed important and you can do something meaningful with your life and what i've learned later, I heard a rabbi say it was the number one thing that men like in life is to be useful towards others. That's why they often give help when you don't need it. But they really have this desire to do something of use. And I felt also back then that I wanted to do with my life. I was 25, 26 when I started. And I felt like everything I did up until now was great, nice, but it was all for me,

just for, you know, I could do some shopping, I could do some holidays, I could eat nice things, but it didn't reach like a sort of higher level in me. And of course, creating a life or helping create a life is something that is profound. But here are some of the charges that have been leveled against you. And we'll go into some of the aspects that you brought up there as well, thinking that it's not important that the number of children that you have helped create. You have been called a public health risk. You've been called a manipulator. You've been calling a manipulator you've been calling a narcissist even a wannabe cult leader kind of about a sense of self-importance in what you are doing about trying to have an influence on the amount of people that are on this planet

what do you think? I would say that. They are people you donated your sperm to. They had children. One of them is the husband of the woman that used your sperm. But there are other women as well in the documentary. Sorry, continue. Yeah, I mean, it's always easy to project your own feelings feelings or ideas about life into like somebody i think netflix did a very great job at selecting five families out of the 225 families that i've helped

and they will definitely tell you something else and i'm wondering why a if somebody calls this journalism or like an official doku documentary i i don't really see like where's the value they just pick and choose like five people out of 225 and also you can ask why would they have a second baby with my help if they knew about the numbers for example the australian couple they ordered the second file why would they do that yeah and they knew. They wanted to have the second baby. So you say some of the women were aware. Some of the women were not aware. And I want to come back to that point

that you made earlier that you said it's not important that there are these hundreds of children that you have fathered because you will know various mothers have asked you to stop donating. The main fear appears to be that they are concerned that their child

may meet a half-sibling in the future, fall in love with them, be in a relationship with them, which of course could lead to genetic birth defects if that young related couple had a child together. Consanguinity. I mean, that's a real fear. No. If you're known about how it is to be a donor nowadays, you can see that they have not done any studies on how it is for children of open identity donors. All the tests that you're referring to, all the science, whatever it is,

is based upon anonymously donors. So because it's very recent that donors are open to identity, there are not really have been done any studies because the children are maybe now 15, 16, 17. So the first studies need to be done. And I can guarantee you that because now there's cheap DNA tests, for example, I am also on a dna test like 23 and media in my industry so they can find out easily secondly the parents will all tell that their

children are from a donor it's also visible because they're like a lesbian couple or they're like a single mom so the children will have this answer where's my father they will bring up your donor child so because they all know my, even if the chance happens that they would meet each other, they can simply ask. They can ask, are you a donor child, first of all? And secondly, is your donor father Jonathan? I mean, I don't know about you, Jonathan, but I can't imagine when I was a teenager meeting young lads. One of my first questions to them when I just fancied them about whether they were a donor child. I just can't see that happening. Yeah, but you are not a donor child. You were born. You don't know whether I am or not. Yeah, but I assume that you're not a donor child. And if you

were a donor child, you will be brought up with the idea that you're a donor child. It's your identity because you have two moms. You have a single so you know from when you were young you cannot compare yourself with a donor child they know that they're a donor child so they also know that at a certain moment in their life they have to be aware and they have to think well maybe i can i don't know to me that seems like like a donor child to me that seems like a big response responsibility and i think the mothers are saying this that it's a lot for their kid to carry now they had in the documentary you tell me whether this is true or not that you were advocating that they'd have a social media symbol to identify themselves as one of your children just to make clear that it was not

like a serious like oh they have to do this or it's like uh they but it's like look we're in a new situation now we're in a new phase where children from donors with an open identity they deal with new situations so for me i am as a donor i'm 17 years ago and i know what i'm talking about i've thought about it every day so the things that you bring here, like all these outdated views like the fear of inbreeding, the identity crisis. I think that we're now in 2024. We're seeing lesbian couples

everywhere. We see single mothers everywhere. We know the donors are helping families. The outdated views, we should stop projecting them on these children. They are very aware that they're a donor child. They know how to respond. So you don't see anything wrong if a kid has hundreds of half-siblings?

I don't see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I think it's very good. I cannot speak for them, but for what I see is that they're very happy that there are so many siblings because they meet with donor days and they meet with each other, they go on holidays together so You don't understand

anybody being uncomfortable with that Why should they be uncomfortable? It's what they chose for They would say they didn't realize how many times you had donated or how many children had been created. Look, if you want exclusivity, if you go to the cryos clinic, you pay 10,000 euros and then your donor is exclusive. If you don't want to share as a mother, why did you even choose then this path?

What about the... why did you even choose then this path what about i don't have any like these moms in this in this documentary like they they put on this act i don't know why maybe they were if they were hurt in the past by somebody and they projected on me meanwhile they want a second baby and still they say it's so dangerous so there's a couple of things. One, Cryos International, they say they've always adhered to the national and international legislation, that they don't condone mass sperm donation

or unregulated sperm donation, and that they really disassociate from your actions. They said that they have always, you know, demanded valid identification of identity before people can be accepted as donors so if somebody had gone to cryos the chances are they might have thought okay maybe not exclusive

but they're not expecting those vast numbers to have been created with their donor why not how because the guidelines are 25 families in one country so if you go to uk it's also 25 and the same donor why do you want to do that jonathan no wait wait a second wait a second let's continue it's very important because this is you see in 2024 people are not aware of this they of course they keep the cap in one country, but the same donor gets shipped to Germany. And I'm fine with that. It's fine. But we have to know that this is reality. So you say you are not doing it, but that the sperm banks are doing it.

I follow the same guidelines as the sperm banks. Other aspect on a more human level as well. You talk about women that want a baby very much. Do you ever get a sense that you are manipulating women at a very vulnerable stage of their life, offering them something? Manipulating? Yes. But so offering them something, obviously they really want a baby, but perhaps not aware of exactly how diffuse you have spread your sperm, to be quite frank. And they feel that they're on this path.

They have this connection with you that they have described you as likable and handsome, when in fact that's not what's actually happening at all, that they are just one tiny there's nothing um what would i say exclusive or individual uh with you or this connection that they have with you it's all false that basically the same thing has happened why is this fault in the sense that i offer something better than the sperm banks i offer directly fresh sperm which is better than frozen sperm i give it for free they don't have to pay me they can have contact with me they can ask me anything they want how is this how is this less than than the clinic how is this misleading from what i understand from from the women that have been in the documentary from from my understanding from the way that they have spoken is that I believe they thought it was not some,

you were not somebody who was creating babies with so many other people and that there would be so many half siblings. I guess they thought that it was a small group of people. And I'm sure people can relate to that. You know what I mean? Whether you think this is your little family here or whether it's something that is of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. So what these women want is something that they cannot get everywhere so

i was open at at the start when i started as a donor i was open as a private donor i was open about the number that i've helped but you run into so many problems with that that i chose to follow the guidelines of the clinics, to not inform people about the amount of offspring that I've helped to create. Yet, I decided to give them an approximate number so that they have an idea. Because if I say I don't give any number, they might say, oh, maybe he helped one time. So if I would say like, oh, I helped 15 times, at least I would give an approximate number so that they can see, okay, he is a mass donor. He donated more than all the other donors are saying.

Because all the other donors are saying, oh, I held one or two times. I gave them more than what the clinic could offer. I gave them approximate numbers so that they have an idea, okay, he is probably very active as a donor. If it's 100% correct, you can debate about that oh i i agree on that you can think like okay it will in a perfect world that will be the best thing if everybody could be open if i could be open and if i wouldn't be vulnerable because as a private donor you're also very vulnerable i have had situations you cannot imagine because i was open about myself i gave my address but then when i decided not to help somebody,

they would stand in front of my door. And who's there to protect me? I don't have money in the bank. I don't have lawyers. So there's no financial incentive for any of this? No, but do you hear what I say? Yes, I'm listening. I decided this because I was very vulnerable.

There is no protection for private donors. Some people call putting the children on the planet an addiction. What would you respond to that? Well, where's the addictive part? An addiction comes always with a physical excitement. So please, can they explain to me how exciting it is to be in a bathroom, like a dirty bathroom where you have to force yourself to donate in a cup? I don't really see the addictive endorphins in that situation. You say you're in your 40s now.

Do you think you'll continue to donate? The Netherlands have put a cap on it, shall we say. They said you'll be penalized. I think it's 100,000 euros if, in fact, you do donate again. I already stopped donating for new recipients in 2019. I only donated for siblings, for parents that were already in an existing family. So the court case was basically useless because I already stopped.

And the court case also did not prohibit me to help existing families. So you continue to do that. And so there are families continuing to use you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Interesting. And meeting with some of the children that you fathered. You talk about approximately 550 children.

How many of those children do you think you know in any way or have met with in any way well let's say that from the the hundred from the clinic i've now come to know a few but um in the next years they will probably contact me but let's say that from the 450 that i help privately maybe 75 i'm in direct contact with. And how? Like, what is it? Is it a birthday card? Is it a walk in the park?

Yeah, it could be like a phone call. It could be like, I'm also now with the older children, the elder children that I'm like WhatsAppping. We have donor days where we meet with different families. I could go on holiday. I could go travel to them to visit them.

And what is that like for you when you meet them? That you can compare to being an uncle to the children, like feeling-wise. Because it's great to meet them, but they're safe in their family. They have their parents. You know, I'm not like a figure that is involved in the upbringing, of course. So it's great when I arrive. The children love it. But that's also good when I'm leaving.

They're never crying. It's never a sad moment. It's always like, okay, ciao. They're happy to see me go because they have their own family. What about your own family? You're in your 40s now. Have you wanted to have your own kid that you raise? Oh, yeah.

I want to have a large family. And what's stopping you? Well, I want to stay nice about the Dutch ladies. But you've seen an example how they can be in the documentary. They're not all very traditional. It's hard to find somebody that also wants to have a traditional family

with traditional values. What does that mean? Well, if you have seen my YouTube, I always talk about natural tribes and Amish and Mennonites. And I would love to live like this. I'm already working on this.

But yeah, most women are not interested in that. They want to have a career or they want to focus on materialism i want to live very simple and like on a small farm self-sustaining self-sufficient so not really a big ego i just want to be live very small and serve god basically that's my yeah is that at the is that at the heart of of some of your beliefs it's a faith in religion? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I'm laughing at when they say narcissist and things. I know that I have always been humble and I always want to be, yeah,

serving for nature and for others and towards God. So, but that's a problem in the Netherlands because it's a very modern country and most women are very modern. But it's so interesting you say that because as you talk about assisting or helping these other women that have more alternative lifestyles, but example, you work in a pharmacy. You will give medicines to people that might be totally different than you, but it's not important. You can live how you want to live, but you can respect the other. And I might have a different lifestyle, i i love these people and i and i

wanted to help them you don't have any conflict over that you're not conflicted about that even though some people might see it as very different but i guess being the donor that you are has meant this documentary has been made you did not take part in it um but it does mean there will be repercussions when that's released in the sense of i would imagine i don't know yet but in your day-to-day life what do you what do you mean with i think i think if a documentary is widely watched i would imagine there will be more scrutiny of you more people will know about you. More people will watch you. I mean, does that bother you? No. I've put myself out on YouTube for 11 years now, so I don't have a

problem with showing myself, but as long as it's the truth. That was Jonathan Meyer. He is the man at the center of a series on Netflix that has been released today. The man with 1,000 Kids. I do want to say, if you've been affected by what you've been hearing, we do have a link on the Woman's Hour website to support donor-conceived families. And if you just were joining me during that interview, you may not know that we have with me from the Netherlands, mums Natalie and Suzanne, who had a baby with sperm donated by Jonathan.

In studios, Natalie Hill, the executive producer for The Man with a Thousand Kids. She created that for Netflix. And Rachel Cutting, who is the director of compliance and information at the Human Fertilisation

and Embryology Authority, HFEA, the UK's independent regulator of fertility treatment. Also listening to that, you will have heard him mention Netflix. We did approach them for a response. They said they would not be providing a comment. Let me turn to

Natalie, of Natalie and Suzanne. We have two Natalies in our group of women. And maybe I got a little from Natalie beforehand. Suzanne, maybe I should turn to you, your reaction to what you've just heard. Yeah, this is, if I listen to his reply, extensive reply, this is also the reason that we ended up having a court case against Jonathan to make him stop. Clearly, he does not really see the results of his actions

and does not really want to take and acknowledge the responsibility towards the children. Because in the end of the day that we have been lied to, sure. But if the children that are put on this world that might not be aware that they're a donor child, there's heterosexual couples having a donor child, they might not know this. They might not even know who the donor is, even if they have same-sex parents or a single mother. They don't always are sure about this. And the biggest concern, Natalie, is for you? The biggest concern for me is the fact that these children are going to run into one another and going to fall in love with one another because they recognize something in each other.

And they're not aware of the fact that they're from the same donor dad. And that's the biggest risk that I see because he talks about being an open donor, a known donor. But yeah, in fact, he has donated to numerous clinics all over the globe. And not all the clinics share the same values as maybe you and I do about being open and honest towards your children. And that's the biggest risk, I think. He says, as you will have heard,

that you knew the deal, that he was a sperm donor, that there was no exclusive arrangement. And I'm wondering what you think of that and what your expectation was. Yes he told me that he when I first met him that he wanted to help only five families and he told me back then that he went to a clinic and he was not comfortable but using his sperm towards the clinics because the clinics made a lot of money. So he made me feel at ease using his sperm.

And later on in 2020, he was sitting on our couch and we asked him again because we wanted to have a second child because the first child I had with my ex-girlfriend at the time. And the second child we wanted to have together we asked him again about the numbers and he told us 25 was the case so and I and I don't know how many specifically he's had in the Netherlands but it does come to that larger point about no global registry as I understand it yet either but But let me turn to my other guests that are here as well, because there's quite a bit to get through. Let me turn to you, Natalie Hill, producer of The Man With 1,000 Kids.

Jonathan says you chose five families out of a much larger group and that the others are happy. What do you respond to that? I've spent the last four years speaking to families that have been impacted by Jonathan's lies. I've personally spoken to 45 to 50 families about his lies. 50 families made impact statement to the court about his lies and pleading the judge that he stop. So this continued platform for Jonathan to talk about it being a handful of women is completely untrue. He also resorts to calling them ugly and angry and goes

off point. I did ask him about that actually, it wasn't in that and I did ask him did he regret it and he said that the ugly he meant by not physical appearance but about them inside we'll get back to the numbers then he says it's a handful of women the documentary series which we've spent a long time making and researching carefully has comments and research from multiple families all across the world. And to try and suggest that he knows all these families is not true and that they're all happy is not true. What gave me pause watching, speaking to Jonathan, speaking to you all now as well,

and let me turn to Rachel Cutting from the HFEA, is that he talks about it being quite common for sperm donors to help create hundreds of children, if not in one country, but by going to various jurisdictions. And I should just, before I go to you, Rachel, of course, respond that I don't have Jonathan here. You're talking about him lying.

He says he hasn't. And obviously, I don't have you both in the same room at the same time. But a court of law found him guilty of that. Guilty in the Netherlands. Rachel, sorry, back to my question. Is it common? Could it be common for a sperm donor to have created hundreds of children globally? I suppose to put it into context, we can think about what happens in the UK.

And fertility treatment in the UK is very regulated. And that isn't always the case globally. So in the UK, any treatment is carried out in a licensed centre, licensed by the HFEA, which helps ensure that safe and ethical treatment happens. And within the UK, we have a 10-family limit and all donors are registered on our central database. Any clinic can check within the UK how many families in the UK they have,

but what can happen is that donors can donate outside the UK. So whilst we have control in the UK, the HFEA doesn't have any jurisdiction outside the UK or what happens within private donations, which is why we encourage women to go to a licensed HFDA clinic. Today in the Times I was reading, Sophia Manikutz had an article and she said there's no law preventing donors or clinics from selling sperm to multiple different countries.

And she goes on to say, so following recommended guidelines in each country, the same clinic can easily sell sperm from one donor to father six families in Sweden, 12 families in Denmark, 10 families in Britain, and as many as they like in the United States because there is no limit. Is that how you understand it, Rachel? Yes, there is a limit in the UK and that is because we have strict legislation and guidance. But outside of the UK, that's not something that we can control.

I do believe that in some countries, they do set limits. So I know in Australia, perhaps there are limits. But because we have a central database, it's something that we can very much keep control over. But outside the UK or private donations, we can't do anything about. Let me read a little from Cryos, which Jonathan also mentioned, that is a sperm bank. I mentioned a little of it when I was speaking to him. They also said that Jonathan succeeded in donating to several sperm banks, including Cryos International. When he became a donor at Cryos,

neither Cryos nor the public knew he had already donated to several other sperm banks. As a Cryos donor, you sign an agreement that states two things, that you donate exclusively to Cryos International

and that you have not donated elsewhere and do not do so in the future. When we became aware of his breach of contract, we immediately made his sperm unavailable on our website. They go on to say, and this is what I find very interesting, since there's no common international database for sperm donors, Cryos International and other sperm banks have never had a way of checking

if a donor had already donated elsewhere. That is why we at Cryos long have been advocating for a European or a global database that would allow us to avoid cases like these in the future. Last year, Cryos asked the EU Commission to revise the legislation on the area. So we're hoping that a donor database could become a reality before long.

Furthermore, we're actively working for a common national donor register in Denmark through a Danish trade association for egg and sperm donation. And I imagine they're mentioning Denmark there because that is the largest sperm bank globally um let me come back to you natalie and suzanne a couple speaking to me from the netherlands that are featured in the netflix series um as i say all these things and this issue is global really are you surprised not at all while researching this topic like there's a reason that we came to a thousand children and we're not

exaggerating with this um one thing for instance that we found out is that um specifically jonathan's sperm was maxed out in many, many, many of the countries that Krius ships to. At this moment, we can't see that anymore, but we have seen that. So there's that. Then that is only one sperm bank. If they don't have a database, if they don't share this information with each other, that's a horrible horrible thing but in the end of the day what if we look at the person because in the end of the day it's the person going to a clinic it's the person going to a sperm bank doing these private donations yes but but i'm wondering can you can you control a person's behavior yes are you relying on that person to behave in a way that you want them to?

If you make it criminal to behave in a certain way, we can monitor people's behaviour towards, if you go to a shopping mall, you can't steal clothes, you can't steal food. If you do that and you get caught, you get a fine or maybe imprisonment. So if you look at the behavior of a person, you can control it if you make it illegal. So instead of these... Look at the women's side of the thing, right? So can we just be a surrogate? Can you just tell your ex online? Can you even ask for a surrogate? Can you just tell your ex online? Can you even ask for a surrogate?

Can you sell your kidneys online? No. Right. There's law in place. So, hold that thought for a moment. Back to you, Rachel Cutting. If a listener has used a sperm donor or is thinking about it, should they be concerned?

So, if it's in the UK and it's I just want to say, come to you in a second, I have Natalie on a screen and she's nodding her head yes. Sorry, go ahead, Rachel. So if you've had treatment in the UK, you can apply to opening the register. And as a woman who's had treatment, they can find out the number of siblings that have been born through that donor in the year and sex at birth of those siblings. What we would say is that if that donor is a UK donor, there is obviously the limit within the UK. But it is possible that if you've imported a donor from overseas, that that donor will have been used in other countries.

So it is possible outside of the UK that there may be more siblings. And that issue of exclusivity, is that a way to guarantee it? I mean, I am aware that overseas sperm banks do offer that. Do UK not? You can do that through a clinic in the UK. I'm sure you would be able to, but obviously there is costs involved in that. How valid are fears of consanguinity,

so that of close blood relatives being attracted to one another having a child together that could have genetic defects that Natalie was mentioning to me? So this was why the 10 family limit was set up in the UK quite a few years ago because it was felt that that was a reasonable number to reduce the chance of that. There are DNA websites now where it is quite a lot easier now to be able to find out if you do have relations and of course now in the UK the law changed in 2005 that when you are 18 you can access identifiable information and from the age of 16 if you are in a relationship and you do have concerns say you just knew you were both donor conceived you can check that

information with the HFEA which always comes around for why it's important to have access of treatment in a clinic. Natalie Hill, producer. What did you want to achieve with this series? I really implore people to watch the three part series because through doing so you can see how Jonathan has been able to lie with the lack of legal landscape and the lack of transparency in fertility overall and that has enabled him to do that and the consequences to the families is really well brought out in the documentary series and you know there isn't time to do it justice in a small segment there isn't time to come back to every single thing jonathan said about it not being true he took away informed consent from these families and the whole industry relies on the honesty of men that are donating

which i think is a key part of our conversation today and about keeping the women who have used a sperm donation at the heart of it, our families indeed as well, with men involved as they are in this series. I will let you all go, just a very quick one to you Natalie, does your child know about all the half-siblings and how does he or she feel about it? Not all the half-siblings because i don't know even who are the all the half siblings but he knows that he's he's a part of a large large group of half siblings and he feels yeah he has so many questions and even we were talking to him yesterday at the dinner table about this subject and he had a few questions towards jonathan and like how many are there and then he he was like he paused and he he thought okay and if he's

not honest then i have another question um where did you donate so that he can do the number the math the mathematics if if the the number that jonathan has told him was correct. So that's how he's in it. He's in the middle of trying to figure that out. I do want to add one thing because Jonathan made a point against one particular family deciding to have a second child. So the court ruled only new families couldn't have Jonathan as a donor recipient and trying to pinpoint one family for wanting siblings that are genetically related

is not fair when he's had hundreds and hundreds of donations. And again, people can watch the series that's out today on Netflix. It's called The Man with a Thousand Kids. I want to thank my guests, Natalie and Suzanne, joining me from the Netherlands. Natalie Hill, the executive producer of that film. Rachel Cutting from the HFE Natalie Hill, the executive producer of that film, Rachel Cutting from the HFEA. Thanks you all.

A rich for discussion. I was about to say fertile topic. I'm not going to say that. Thank you all so much for coming in and speaking to me here on Woman's Hour. Now, somebody just got a touch.

I've just taken the plunge. I've invested in a brand new electric vehicle. I was so nervous when Tess driving it. It's like sitting in a computer rather than a car. But I fell in love with it straight away. I'm glad I bought it.

I'm saving so much in diesel. It feels so good. I'm not belching fumes into the air. And she goes into some more details. And why am I reading that comment? Because this is our next topic. Lots of you are thinking about the electric car, but apparently women aren't really jumping on it.

There's a new report out from Autotrader that has found that there's a stark gender divide when it comes to going green with your vehicle choice. Hypermasculine marketing, highly technical jargon, anxieties about running out of charge are apparently some of the reasons they give on why women feel excluded from making the switch. Let's speak to Erin Baker for a few minutes.

She's Editorial Director at Autotrader. She's authored this report. Welcome, Erin. So the report reveals a lot of anxieties when it comes to electric vehicles and women. I mentioned some of them, which I was struck with this figure. 49% of women worried about it not being charged when they need it compared to 39% of men. Yeah. hello. Yes, absolutely. You know, there's a huge gender gap just when we thought that women would be, you know, buying more electric cars than men because we know women love sustainable products

in other areas of their lives. But women just haven't got, well, they haven't got the confidence because they haven't got the knowledge because they don't tend to read car magazines. They don't tend to watch car stuff on YouTube. And when it comes to the specifics of electric vehicles, you know, the things that jump out for women, the anxieties that jump out are predominantly around charging, range, the reliability of the

battery. But you know, that's not because we're all scaredy cats more than men, you know, it's because if you look at how women are in society, we're more likely to be the carers for children for vulnerable adults so we are more worried about running out of charge there is still a you know that gender gap in existence but i did uh read that they were turned off by technical jargon um and then i felt that feels regressive to me because there are many technically minded women. But what did you find? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is one of my bugbears. You know, the industry used to talk with petrol and diesel about BHP and pounds foot of torque and all this stuff.

And then we had electric cars and we could have ditched all this jargon. And instead, we're still talking about kilowatts, kilowatt hours. It's not that women are kind of, you know, dumber than men and can't cope with this jargon. Men and women alike don't like the jargon. I still struggle to remember what the difference is between a kilowatt and a kilowatt hour. But it's that men can turn to the car magazines, will turn to their mates in the pub, we'll turn to programs on TV and get that information. Whereas women, you know, car brands, the car industry doesn't reach out to us where we are. And, you know, we are active and we're reading stuff around things like travel, well-being, health, parenting. But the car industry waits until we're in market for our next car before they talk to us.

And at that point, we don't want the jargon. I'm seeing with the woman who got in touch with me, she said YouTube is your friend. She did a lot of research before she actually made the switch on which she is very happy with now. But have you seen anything about what is the impetus, the catalyst that actually pushes women over to try an electric vehicle? Well, we know actually it's really, I find it really frustrating because we know that if you get women into test drive electric cars, actually they love them because electric cars, you know, they're really fast off the line. They're really smooth. They're quiet. They just feel like a simpler and more sustainable product. And actually, you know, our research shows that 80% of current female

electric car drivers would choose another electric car for their next car and the same amount would recommend one to friends and family so you love them once they love them once you get them over the line but you know we need to see more advertising that's got women front and center of it car advertising car marketing we need car brands to be talking to women where they are we need to ditch the jargon all this stuff that I mentioned we need car content in women's magazines we don't have enough of it yeah why is that it's so rare that you see it it is it drives me nuts I do the car content now for Vogue and Marie Claire and that's really great but it's taken me years to get women's magazines to to to see that women do want to read about cars. They might not want

to read car reviews, but they want to read nice car content. They own cars. It's the same as women reading about finance content in magazines. Why not? We all have bank accounts. Let's hope we do in our own name. Editorial Director at AutoTrader, Erin Baker. Thank you so much for joining us. Just another couple of details from my listener who was there. She says, costs about £15, she says, for a whole charge,

which gets her over 300 miles in range. She installed a charger outside her house and uses hazard mats to hide the cable for health and safety and it's working really well. Thanks very much for getting in touch. 84844. Maybe you want to talk about cars.

Maybe you want to talk about sperm donation. Or maybe you want to talk about art. It is 150 years since the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874. A group of artists decided to hold their own exhibition and their experimental paintings both thrilled and shocked Paris' art establishment. The artists involved include Monet, Renoir, Degas, Passereau, Sisley and Cézanne, now some of the most famous names in Western art. But there was just one female artist included in that exhibition, Bertha Morisot. But other women were involved in the Impressionist movement

and 150 years on, the National Gallery of Ireland is holding an exhibition to explore the work of four female pioneers who are integral to that artistic movement. The exhibition has just opened. I'm joined by the Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dr Caroline Campbell. You're very welcome to Women's Hour. I'm very thrilled to be here in Women's Hour.

I've been listening to Women's Hour since I was a child in Belfast with my mother many years ago. We're so thrilled to be doing this exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The National Gallery was actually one of the first public museums to be collecting work of the women Impressionists. We bought a painting of Berthe Morisot from her daughter Julie in 1936. In 1936. So she is one that is perhaps better known. But let's go through the four women.

Give us a little overview. So we have Berthe Morisot, who comes from a very bourgeois Parisienne family. She's married to Eugène Manet, who is the brother of the famous painter Edouard. And she's very well connected. She comes from a family who are incredibly supportive. One of her other sisters is a painter as well, too.

And she was clearly just a really dynamic, interesting person. We also have a really clear sense of Marie Cassatt, who is American. She's from Pennsylvania, but she spends most of her life in Paris and in France. She also had a really close family relationship with all her siblings, particularly her sister Lydia. And their correspondence is remarkable. She was very friendly with Doga. Morisot was very friendly with Renoir.

The men were actually really supportive in general of the women painters at this time. I'll stop you for one second. Maybe that's surprising, though, you know, that they were treated in a fair way or supported as an ally. Perhaps they weren't treated in a fair way, but they were certainly supported. And Cassatt and Degas are great friends. Morisot is really friendly with Renoir, and she has a long relationship, friendship with Manet. Eva Gonzalez, another of the women in our exhibition, was Manet's really proper pupil. But Marie Bracamont, the fourth artist, had a more contested relationship. She was the one of these artists who didn't come from a really sort of prosperous background.

She made a sensation age 17 when she had a painting selected for exhibition in the Salon, so the equivalent of the Royal Academy or the Royal Haberlian Academy in Paris. She came from quite a small town. She went to train with Ingres, who was one of the most famous artists of the day. She married a painter, Félix Bracamont, but in later years he really undermined her and she turned into herself in the account of their son Pierre

and actually really stopped painting. So there are very few paintings by her and we're really lucky to have four of the best ones in our exhibition. I was taking a look at some of what is on show and it's interesting right if we think about Impressionist paintings we often think of you know an outdoors I don't know a park or a cafe but of course there are scenes that perhaps weren't always available for a female painter to go down with her easel and, you know, set up and start painting. It just wouldn't be the done thing in those times.

Well, it was really hard, particularly if you were a woman from the middle classes. So, Burt Morisot actually writes about when she does go and tries to paint outdoors in the countryside and people won't stop pestering her. They're just totally fascinated by this woman doing this. They think she's an oddity. So it is interesting. Of course, the Impressionists as a group, they are interested in the painting of modern life, the painting of everyday life. But for the woman, it's not possible to really paint theatres or concert halls or ballet in the same way that their male contemporaries do. So you do see more of the inside world of households and also of private gardens and of public parks as well, too.

The places where it was safe and possible for a woman to go, either chaperoned or by herself. And so that's a really interesting distinction with the work of the men. Yeah, the interesting, I suppose, the interior life or the domestic life often of children as well, which I note is very intimate. These four women did have the support in the form of sisters who modelled for them.

I love that. I do too. Sisters who modelled for them, sisters who also painted. Marie Bracamont, her main model, is her sister Louise, who comes up again and again in her paintings. Burt Morisot's sister Edma was also a painter and in fact we have one work by her in the show

together with paintings of Morisot's nieces as well. Evo Gonzalez had a sister Jan who painted and Mary Cassatt, her greatest friend, was her sister Lydia who very sadly died quite young and there are some very moving pictures in the exhibition of poor Lydia sitting on a park bench looking cold looking unwell I love the sense that this is of people of artists not just as individuals but a part of families and part of supportive networks we all know how lucky those of us who are sisters are to have them. So I love that celebrated in this exhibition. And are people discovering these women for the first time? I

know for those that are deeply steeped in the art world, they will have known them, but it must be bringing a whole new audience to them. It is. It is in Ireland and I hope beyond as well. People do know of Morris so often. They might know of Cassatt, but mainly of their America, but the others know. But there were so many women who were actually in Paris at the end of the 19th century. That's an area where I think there's a lot of work, a lot of exhibitions to be done. All these women who went to the city to train from Ireland, from England, from everywhere over Northern Europe, from Russia, from Ukraine, so many places. And there's a lot for us to be able to tell and show there, because these women

often weren't shown as much in their lifetimes. They often married, they often had lives where it was not possible for them to continue with their painting. Obviously, that changed. But it's interesting that many of these women were also involved in women's movement. Mary Cassatt, who made a lot of money in her life, she was a very successful painter. She put money into helping women's suffrage, actually, in the early 20th century. So these are artists who are not just painting. They are also really interested in the wider world in which they inhabit. And I think that comes across in the exhibition as well too. Well Women Impressionists has just opened

at the National Gallery of Ireland and it runs until the 6th of October. I want to thank my guest Dr Caroline Campbell Director of the National Gallery of Ireland for speaking to me here on Women's Hour. I hope we'll have you back after being such a long time listener.

Tomorrow it is 25 years since New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell published her first novel, Ralph's Party. Since then, she's written another 21 novels, more recently a number of dark psychological thrillers. Tomorrow, she joins Crouppen to discuss her latest, Breaking the Dark, a Jessica Jones Marvel crime novel. Let me see.

Just listening to your bit on electric cars. I'm a very happy driver of an electric car. I used to hate driving, but since I got an electric one, I bloomin' love it. I have chronic back pain and the smooth nature of the drive and the ride makes driving so much easier. I will talk to you on Monday. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi guys, I'm Ryland and this is How To Be In The Spotlight from BBC Sounds.

It's the podcast where together we're going to hear what it's like to be thrust into the public eye by those who've lived to tell the tale. In this podcast, I'm going to be joined by 12 fantastic guests who are going to share how they've learned to navigate the perks, pressures and pitfalls of fame. This is Ryland, How To Be In in the spotlight. Listen on BBC Sounds. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

Available now.