Australia’s Most Prolific Sperm Donor Is Under Investigation After Fathering 23 Children In One Year

An Australian man is under investigation after authorities say he fathered too many kids. Alan Phan, 40, has been providing his sperm to women trying to conceive. In one year, he has fathered 23 children, the Daily Mail reports.

Phan has two children of his own but prolificated his offspring by donating his sperm to would-be parents and registered fertility clinics. But the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Authority (VARTA), which is responsible for managing the donor registers, has launched an investigation into Phan’s donations, claiming he’s gone over the limit. Apparently, under the agency’s law, men can only create ten families, including their own.

But in Phan’s defense, he says he found it hard to tell the women who wanted to have a baby no, and at one point in time, he had donated his sperm to three women in just one day.

“When I first started, I was only going to donate nine times,” he said. “I reached my ninth, and I thought that was it.”

“Then I received a message from a lady around Christmas saying the donation was successful, which became my tenth.”

“I thought, ‘Well, I’ve already gone over my limit, I’ll just help a few more,’ and it kind of blew out. Some of the original recipients weren’t too happy about it.”

What was once a hobby for him turned into a full-time job. Not only did he have to work out daily and take vitamins to get healthy sperm, but he also had to abstain from sexual activity. He also claims that since he was the first Vietnamese man to donate sperm in Australia, there was a high demand for his semen. Women wanted his ethnicity and to be included in his success rate.

“I was pretty surprised at the amount of interest I received,” he said. He received some jealously from other men who supplied semen, saying it was a competitive field.

Because Phan has maxed out, one woman is no longer allowed to use her embryos created with his sperm.

“The embryos in storage cannot be used,” VARTA Chief Executive Officer Louise Johnson said.

“Once a treating clinic knows that more than ten families have been formed through one donor’s donations, they cannot keep using that donor’s sperm. In addition to this, when a donor reaches the ten-family limit, the clinic cannot use embryos already created using his sperm for a recipient who has not already had a child using that donor’s sperm.”

Johnson has called Phan out for taking advantage of the system, “It is against the law to provide misleading information to a clinic as part of a consent process to donate,” she said.

As for now, the investigation is in the early stages.