"I'm not massively rich, but I've made a few bob along the way. I don't want them thinking 'Ooh, look at this guy living in a big house... with a Mercedes in his driveway'," he said. "When you think about it, anyone who contacts you is going to have a problem.... If I have that many kids, what is the chance of having one who is disabled?" The man, now aged in his 60s, donated sperm on dozens of occasions in the 1980s because he and his wife felt sorry for infertile couples. They have not told their own adult children about it and he recently learnt his sperm had produced more than 20 children for 12 families. About a month ago, his wife stumbled across an article about the Victorian government's plan which is likely to be introduced to parliament this year. The couple have been furious about the potential privacy breach ever since and say sperm donors should have been contacted personally in a discreet manner to seek their views. They are now considering legal action against Epworth hospital where he donated his sperm. In his letter to Health Minister Jill Hennessy, he called for the government to extend its consultation period about the proposal, which is due to end Friday (September 4), to March 2016 because he believed other sperm donors would not know about it.

He requested that all donors be immediately notified of the proposal and that a panel of all stakeholders be set up to work through the issues so they can reach a "fairer" outcome. Under the government's plan, people conceived with sperm donated before 1998 will be able to learn details such as the name and date of birth of their donor without the donor's permission. The government believes all donor-conceived people have a right to know their genetic heritage, whether for medical reasons, curiosity about their background or to try to connect with the people who helped create them. A discussion paper outlining how the process would work says a donor will be given two months to say if they wish to be contacted, and how, if a donor-conceived child wishes to make contact.

If the donor says they do not want to be contacted and the donor-conceived offspring decide to contact them anyway, they risk a fine of nearly $9000. The angry sperm donor said this was not good enough. He said if people were given his details, they would inevitably look him up on the internet, drive past his home or try to observe him in some other way. He also fears what will happen when people are told he does not want contact. "I might get some yobbo kid who comes around to the house and wants to beat me up because I don't want to see them," he said, adding that his wife now wants to move interstate. "It's scary". The man also questioned whether the fine would apply to the mothers of the children conceived with donor sperm who tried to contact the donor. In a statement released to Fairfax, Health Minister Jill Hennessy noted that there would be penalties for anyone who contacted a donor who did not wish to be contacted.

IVF pioneer Gab Kovacs backed the man's call, saying the first thing some sperm donors would hear of this change would be a phone call to say their offspring wanted their details after the law had changed. "I feel bad that people who were promised something by my colleagues in good faith are now having this anonymity retrospectively removed by the government," he said. "For them to now possibly have someone knock on the door and say "Hi dad" could destroy their relationships."