For decades, doctor Jan Karbaat was seen as a pioneer of assisted reproduction in the Netherlands – until it was discovered in 2017 that he used his own semen to inseminate several patients without consent.
The first complaints about Karbaat practices arose when mothers began to perceive remarkable physical differences between their children and their legal parents. Such suspicions motivated families to seek genetic examinations, which revealed a pattern: many of the children had the same biological father.
The case was confirmed by DNA tests authorized by the Dutch court in 2019, which proved that Karbaat was the biological father of more than 49 children who were generated by artificial insemination in their clinic, which was located in the Dutch city of Barendrecht. The tests were done after the doctor’s death in early 2017, when police seized goals with his genetic materials. According to investigations by the Dutch authorities, Karbaat manipulated documents and guarantee to patients who would use in the genetic material process of selected anonymous donors, but actually used their own semen without informing families.
Karbaat worked in the assisted reproduction sector at a time when the rules for artificial insemination in the Netherlands were uncommon, which, according to the authorities, facilitated the practice of criminal acts. After performing the procedure, the doctor even said that the patients of patients could meet the donor in the future.
In interviews for international vehicles, former patients reported that Karbaat performed at the time he worked in the sector as an empathic and innovative professional, even welcoming single women and homosexual couples-a posture seen at the time as progressive.
Despite attempts by the doctor’s family from preventing authorities from accessing their genetic material after his death, the Dutch justice determined that the right of children to discover their ancestry should prevail. Based on this decision, tests made in 2019 confirmed the biological connection between Karbaat and dozens of children born at their clinic.
