In case you’d forgotten over the weekend what a horrible, twisted place the world is, here is a god awful reminder.
Police arrested a fertility doctor in Indianapolis after an online DNA testing site revealed to six women that they were all related to one person.
Fox59 orginally investigated the story, thinking they’d find a heartwarming tale of a donor dad who brought all these women into the world. But at the fertility clinic all their mothers went to, they discovered it was only the doctor jerking off into cups.
Now, it is suspected he may have used his own sperm to impregnate 50 women.
Police arrested and charged Donald Cline with two counts of obstruction of justice.
Court documents filed on Friday describe a meeting that took place in the spring of 2016 between Dr. Cline and six siblings. Cline described to the siblings that he used his own sperm whenever a donor sample wasn’t available. And admitted to wrongdoing by inseminating women with his own sperm.
In a conversation with Angela Ganote this summer, Cline said he didn’t believe he was fathering children, rather helping families who were devastated by being unable to conceive on their own.
His reason? Basic laziness. From The Indianapolis Star:
According to the probable cause affidavit, Cline told one of his biological daughters that he felt pressured to use his own sperm when he did not have access to donor sperm. In one discussion, he only donated sperm nine or 10 times. In another discussion, he said it was more like 50 times.
Cline claims now that he never used his own semen in his practice.
“I can emphatically say that at no time did I ever use my own sample for insemination,” Cline wrote in the letter.
Cline went on to accuse his accuser of libel and slander.
“I followed suggested guidelines of the period,” Cline wrote, according to court records. “I also did nothing morally or legally wrong.”
The obstruction of justice charges are for making false statements to authorities.
While what he did may have been unethical, it’s not sure if, especially back then, it was illegal.
[Dr. Laura Reuter, medical director of Midwest Fertility Specialists] called Cline’s behavior “deceptive and immoral,” but said it cannot be judged through a modern-day lens.
“We have to go back and remember that that was a different era,” she said.
Glad we don’t live in that time anymore.
Cline retired from his practice in 2009 and says his records from back then have been destroyed.
He is due in court today.
[Via Fox59]