Australian sperm donor investigated after fathering 23 children in one year

The man who is touted as Australia’s most prolific unofficial sperm donor is under investigation for allegedly exceeding the limit of children a donor can create.

Alan Phan, a 40-year-old man from Brisbane, has been providing sperm both privately and through registered clinics to help people who want to become parents.

Mr. Phan, who has two children of his own, fathered 23 children in one year through your donations.

While he has helped many Australian families, his actions are now being investigated by the Victorian Assisted Reproduction Authority (VARTA).

Under Victoria law, up to 10 women, including the donor’s partner, can have children from the same donor.

In some rural fertility clinics and other states, that limit is lowered to five families for each donor, due to the possibility of meeting related families and having future contact with a donor.

In addition to donating through registered clinics, the 40-year-old has also been donating informally through an online group called Sperm Donation Australia.

When going through formal channels, a donor must confirm that they have not donated more than the 10 family limit.

Mr. Phan donated sperm to the City of Melbourne’s Number 1 Fertility and Fertility Clinics, according to the Daily Mail.

VARTA CEO Louise Johnson told the publication that the investigation into Mr. Phan meant that a patient at fertility facility # 1 has now been banned from using her embryos created from the Brisbane man’s sperm, which which causes him immense anguish.

“Once a treating clinic knows that more than 10 families have been formed through donations from a donor, they cannot continue to use that donor’s sperm,” said Ms. Johnson.

“In addition to this, when a donor reaches the limit of 10 families, the clinic cannot use embryos already created with their sperm for a recipient who has not yet had a child using that donor’s sperm.”

Johnson said it was “incredibly sad and naive” for Mr. Phan to continue donating his sperm, adding that it is illegal to “provide misleading information to a clinic as part of a consent process to donate.”

Speaking to Kidspot in October this year, Phan said that he first thought about making a donation after he and his wife, Merlyn, were at a fertility clinic while trying to get pregnant with their second child.

At the time, Mr. Phan was not sure if he was infertile and decided that if he was not, he would help others with a donation.

He said that when he started donating, his plan was to donate only nine times.

“I got to my 9th and I thought that was it. Then I got a message from a lady at Christmas saying that the donation was successful, which then became my 10th and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve already exceeded my limit, me.'” I’ll help a few more “and it went off. Some of the original recipients weren’t very happy with it,” he told the publication.

Mr. Phan said that when he started donating, he was the only Vietnamese in Australia to do so.

“I didn’t think anyone wanted me to be their donor to be honest,” he said.

“I was quite surprised by the amount of interest I received.”

Some weeks, the 40-year-old will have three people contact him in 7 days asking for donations, with a woman flying in from Sydney and Melbourne to have Mr. Phan as a donor.

Generally speaking, Professor Fiona Kelly of La Trobe University School of Law said that because private sperm donations have become so popular, most online donors were exceeding their donation limits.

“Clinics are supposed to collect whether a donor is donating both privately and at the clinic,” he told the Daily Mail.

Professor Kelly said that some of the donors entered the process with a different mindset than helping people create families.

“These men intend to donate to large numbers of people and the goal appears to be prolific, rather than building a relationship with a small number of recipients,” he said.