25 March 2026
In a legal first in Canada, a Judge in Quebec has temporarily banned two men from serially donating sperm in the province. The men in question, a father and son, have allegedly fathered at least 613 children. The injunction against the two men will remain in place until judgment is made at trial. This follows legal proceedings by a mother of four who accuses the men of “fertility fraud” and of allegedly violating the terms of their agreement which stipulated that they would stop donating sperm after one fathered 25 children and the other had donated to 10 families, with an exception of expanding existing families.
The scale of the two men’s prolific sperm donations reportedly first came to light in a television documentary by Noovo Info in 2023. It uncovered that between them, the men were serial sperm donors via Facebook; with the father having allegedly conceived 162 children and his son 451 children. Following the documentary, a third serial sperm donor (another son) was discovered although he reportedly stopped donating sperm in 2020. Two of the sperm donors carry a rare hereditary genetic disorder affecting the liver, which could be passed down to their donor conceived offspring.
The plaintiff (mother) in the case had conceived three children between 2009 and 2012 with sperm donated by the older man by private arrangement. She had subsequently privately conceived a fourth child in 2017 with sperm donated by the man’s son. Within the legal proceedings, her lawyer reportedly claimed that the men had lied about the number of their sperm donations, the quality of their sperm and and their family relationship.
Court documents indicate that the two men denied that they consented to any limits on their sperm donations, although they admitted fathering more children than the limits alleged by the plaintiff. News reports state that the older of the two men admitted having fathered 109 children, although he defended his actions stating that he was helping to solve fertility problems in Quebec and reportedly intimating that if the injunction was granted he would continue his sperm donor activity in Ontario where the temporary injunction did not apply. His son estimated that he had fathered 240 children. These figures were contested by the plaintiff who claimed that the number of the men’s donor conceived offspring is much higher.
This concerning picture led to Quebec’s Superior Court issuing a temporary injunction on 18 March 2026 banning the two men from further sperm donations in the province pending trial on the basis that they had exceeded limits recommended by experts and their actions posed serious risks and harm for the donor conceived children in question and their families. The Court’s judgment went on to acknowledge the psychological harm posed for the children in having to reveal their biological origins whilst dating to prevent incest with half-siblings and blood relations.
This case brings into focus the fact that there is currently no legal limit on the number of sperm donations in Quebec. It has led to increased calls for sperm donor limits to be imposed, with recommendations by Quebec’s Central Committee on Clinical Ethics in Medically Assisted Reproduction that donors should donate to a maximum of ten families as well as the introduction of a centralised egg, sperm and embryo registry. The Quebec Health Department is currently reported to be considering these proposals, although these would only apply to gamete and embryo donations at fertility clinics and not private donations. It is also looking at launching a campaign to raise awareness about issues associated with sperm donation.
Serial Sperm Donation
This troubling situation in Quebec is not an isolated event. Serial sperm donation is increasingly becoming a matter of concern around the world. In recent years, there have been a number of instances where serial sperm donation has come to light as publicised in Netflix’s 2024 US documentary “The Man With 1,000 Kids”. A prolific sperm donor was also discovered in the Netherlands and prohibited from donating at Dutch fertility clinics in 2017 after it was found that he had fathered more than 100 children. Dutch guidelines limit sperm donations to 25 children in 12 families. He then proceeded to donate his sperm privately online and abroad until in 2023 he was completely banned from donating and made liable to a fine of more than 100,000 euros if he donated again following concerns he had misled hundreds of women and fathered more than 550 children around the world. The English Family Court has also published several cases in recent years highlighting the risks of unregulated sperm donation and in extreme cases even naming serial sperm donors to warn other women.
Ongoing demand for sperm and people’s willingness to enter into informal private sperm donor arrangements outside of fertility clinics heightens risks of transmission of infectious diseases given a lack of medical screening. It also increases risks that hereditary genetic diseases can be passed on to donor conceived offspring in the absence of genetic carrier screening. It can also leave women, children and families in vulnerable situations without a clear understanding about genetic origins, health dispositions or the numbers of other donor-conceived siblings as well as long-term worries about accidental incest.
Read more about the issues associated with serial sperm donation in our previous blogs:
“Donor Conception Law: Calls For Global Limits For Egg and Sperm Donors”.
“The Risks of Unregulated Sperm Donation: Serial Sperm Donor Joe Donor”.
“A Cautionary Tale About Informal Sperm Donation: P v Q & F (Child: Legal Parentage) [2024]”.
“Judicial Warning & Naming of Serial Sperm Donor Who Fathered 180 Children”
“Netflix’s The Man With 1,000 Kids”.
“Sperm Donor Dispute: Parental Responsibility, Child Arrangements Orders and Fragile X Syndrome”
Learn more about UK donor conception law.
Specialist Fertility and Family Law
This latest case in Quebec demonstrates just how vulnerable women, children and families can become following serial sperm donation. It also highlights the importance of obtaining specialist fertility and family law advice prior to undergoing informal conception arrangements with a sperm donor to help identify and safeguard against a range of legal and practical risks and navigate:
- Complex personal and family situations.
- Conception by private sperm donation.
- Regulated sperm donation at a licensed fertility clinic.
- Assisted conception with a known sperm donor, anonymous/identity-release donor or co-parent (e.g. legal parentage, parental rights, birth registration, financial responsibility, risks in practice and dispute mitigation etc).
- Donor conception issues/disputes (e.g. concerning formal DNA/paternity testing, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, fertility fraud, biological and legal parentage and birth certificates).
- Care and upbringing of children following a dispute with a donor, co-parent, an ex-partner or parent (e.g. contact, residence, financial arrangements, parental responsibility, specific issue or prohibited steps).
- Intra-family egg or sperm donation.
- Donor conception and issues arising from impaired fertility/infertility, cancer diagnosis/illness, unsuccessful conception attempts, gender transition, change in personal circumstances, age and later-life parenthood.
- Posthumous conception with the eggs, sperm and embryos of a deceased loved one in fertility treatment with donor conception/surrogacy (e.g. due to illness or accident).
- Legal and wider aspects of international surrogacy or a UK surrogacy arrangement and donor conception.
- Expert witness fertility, surrogacy and donor conception law services.
- Legally clarify and determine an individual’s biological parentage (e.g. seek a formal court order for DNA testing and a Declaration of Parentage).
- Legally determine and recognize an individual’s legal parenthood.
- Rectify an individual’s birth certificate (e.g. add or remove a parent’s name).
- Legally resolve a paternity dispute (i.e. following sperm donation, IVF mix-up, issues with natural conception).
- Legally resolve legal parenthood of a non-birth parent for their child following errors in completion of HFEA consent forms at UK fertility clinics.
- Resolve a dispute about paternity/legal parentage and financial provision for a child or individual.
