Australian sperm donor may have fathered over 1,000 children, sparking investigation

An Australian woman is raising alarms after discovering that the sperm donor she used to conceive her children has potentially fathered over 1,000 other children.

Shannon Ashton and her partner have five children — ages 19, 17, 13, nine and six — all conceived via the Queensland Fertility Group in 2002. They used Donor 188, described as a “typical Aussie, sporty bloke” for all five children. The first red flags went up when she met another family at her son’s daycare who had also used Donor 188. “We emailed the clinic and it was such a shock when we got it back to find out that there were 43 others. Never, had I anticipated a number like that,” she previously told the Daily Mail. Though she didn’t yet know the scope of the problem, she was already concerned. “How many more kids aren’t on our list?” she asked.

But then, after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), she found out just how bad it really was.

Donor 188 donated 239 times in four years, and had been described as a “super donator.” Furthermore, according to the document she received, samples could be divided into four separate ampoules. More than one embryo can be created from one ampoule… meaning the number of children this donor may have fathered is almost impossible to estimate.

READ: Doctor used his own sperm to impregnate fertility patient: ‘I felt like a science experiment’

“The document shows that his sample made four ampoules on one day but in some cases a donation could be split as many as 16 times,” she told the Courier-Mail. “But just keeping it at the lower possibility my children’s donor could have 956 kids or even more than 1000 children. I always knew he was a popular donor and my own investigations had shown he probably had dozens of kids, but these numbers have broken me. I feel so guilty. I would never have used him if I had any clue of what was going on. It is no fault of the donor, but I did trust the process.”

Due to Ashton’s situation, Health Minister Shannon Fentiman announced that every fertility clinic in Queensland will be investigated. “I want to thank these brave women for bringing this issue to light,” she said. “I am appalled by the alleged behaviour of some fertility providers here in Queensland and have directed the Health Ombudsman to conduct a systemic investigation. This complements the work Queensland Health is currently doing with the Department of Justice and Attorney-General in relation to introducing donor conception laws and strong regulation for ART. I have also raised these critical issues with the Federal Health Minister.”

Understandably, Ashton is scared of the effect this will have on her children.

“It makes me physically sick that my kids will for the rest of their lives have to fight off the fear of incest,” she said. “They will have to get background checks on anyone they might be even slightly interested in. Just last week my teenage son came across someone he is likely biologically related to.”