The concern is growing over the increasing number of men using Facebook to advertise that they are sperm donors.
And a major donor website has now come out to warn women not to turn to strangers on social media in their bid to conceive.
It comes after James MacDougall was mentioned this week as offering his services to lesbians despite having a genetic condition that can be inherited.
Camera icon James MacDougall – a sperm donor who fathered 15 children with lesbian credit: delivered/delivered.
The 37-year-old has fathered 15 children, despite knowing his fragile X syndrome can lead to learning disabilities, seizures, and autistic traits in offspring.
On the Pride Angel website, which connects couples, lesbians, and single women with donors, the number of men offering services has doubled in less than five years.
And the site has had to ban many “super sperm donors” like Mr. MacDougall and those who try to “naturally” donate sperm by offering women sex.
Pride Angel founder Erika Tranfield said: “We know there are Facebook dads and men who have Excel spreadsheets recording the data on how many children they have”.
They go from area to area, have a lot of bravadoes, and it can be a bit like an addiction.
They are happy to spread their genes, their seed.
However, these men are in the minority, and we are doing everything we can on the website to try and prevent them from registering. We are considering offering genetic testing for sperm in the future.
Family court judge, Ms. Justice Lieven, lifted MacDougall’s anonymity to prevent others from using him as a donor after he launched a legal battle over access to four of the children he fathered.
He insists he “did a good thing” despite not telling the women he had a genetic condition.
Following the case, Pride Angel revealed it has seen its sperm donor membership rise from just 504 men in 2011 to 4,938 this year.
The meteoric rise means experts fear a similar increase in men offering their services for free through social media, as Mr. MacDougall did.
They could offset the drop in sperm donors through fertility clinics in the UK after the pandemic, with just 671 registrations in 2020, compared to 776 the year before.
An online sperm donor, Simon Watson, claims to have fathered more than 800 children, including 18 twins.
He has even offered to pass his samples to women in supermarket parking garages.
While Mr. MacDougall fathered 15 children, men who give sperm to licensed clinics can only donate to up to ten families to minimize the number of children they can have.
This reduces the risk of two children from the same sperm donor entering into a relationship and committing incest unknowingly because they do not know they are related.
Clinics are overseen by the fertility regulator, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFeA).
That means they are required by law to screen semen for infections such as HIV and hepatitis and hereditary diseases.
Experts warn of the risk of sexual assault for women who find donors online, with some men seeking to abuse women they know are desperately seeking a child.
A spokesperson for the HFeA said: “While donating sperm outside an accredited center is not illegal, our advice is always that it is safer for fertility patients using donor sperm to receive treatment at an accredited clinic”“.
