The World's Biggest Family: How some sperm donors have fathered hundreds, and offspring discover armies of half-siblings

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B-plus

In the late ‘70s, an East End Toronto sperm donor clinic bought an ad in our campus paper seeking contributors. They knew our readers were students, often in need of rent money.

To that end, they were offering $25 a pop, as it were. Quite a lot of money back then for something most young men do for free. The ad inspired much joking in the newspaper office, and, I’m pretty sure, was discreetly followed up by at least some of the jokers.

Director Barry Stevens shares pints with a collection of newly-discovered half-siblings.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it. I had rent to pay too. But I didn’t like the idea of having to look twice at every round-faced kid I ever saw and wondering…

I hadn’t thought about that ad for a long time, until I saw the documentary The World’s Biggest Family (which screens on CBC Docs POV Thursday). Director Barry Stevens is central to the story. After discovering he’d been born through artificial insemination, he dug deeper, identifying the previously-anonymous sperm donor. (His films Offspring and Bio Dad presented earlier chapters of his journey)  

And a busy donor he’d been. It turned out that Stevens has at least 600 half-siblings, about 50 of them he’s met (the “family reunion” scenes are in the movie are gobsmacking, light-hearted, laughter-filled, with playful challenges of who looks most like who).

And the title itself may be a misnomer. In his travels, Stevens encounters one “contributor” who earned his honorarium twice a week for 17 years, and may have fathered thousands. He rejected the option of anonymity and has met numerous progeny.

Anonymity is the main focus of The World’s Biggest Family, though other issues arise as well, including instances of criminality, where deceitful doctors have arbitrarily contributed to unsuspecting couples, and of donors who’ve lied about congenital diseases.

But the right to know the identity of biological parents is clearly laid out in The World’s Biggest Family. There are generations of past practice and an attitude that donation is trivial.

But the claims of clinic owners that they’d have no donors if anonymity is removed are belied by countries like the U.K., where such legislation has already been passed. Surprisingly, sperm donation increased with the new guidelines, suggesting that all concerned might actually want to do the right thing.

The World’s Biggest Family. Directed by and starring Barry Stevens. CBC Docs POV on Thursday, October 1 EDT, 2020  at 8 p.m. (9 AT, 9:30 NT) on CBC and the free CBC Gem streaming service.