A retired US fertility doctor has appeared in an Indianapolis court accused of fathering several children using his own sperm to impregnate patients at his clinic.
According to court documents, Dr. Donald Cline, 77, used his own sperm at least 50 times instead of donated sperm that his patients were expecting to receive. Cline is accused of being the biological father of at least eight people, the youngest of which would be about 30.
The retired medical professional pleaded not guilty earlier this week to two felony obstruction of justice charges for misleading authorities who were investigating complaints from two of the now-adult children against him,
CBS News reports.
The Indianapolis native told six adults who believed they were his children that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times starting in the 1970s. He had told his patients they were receiving sperm from medical or dental residents or medical students and that no single donor’s sperm was used more than three times.
The reason it was all discovered now was that one of the adult children took a saliva-based DNA test through a private personal genomics company and found that she was related to at least
eight other people in its database, an affidavit said. Meanwhile, two others also investigated their ancestry through DNA tests and learned their mothers both were patients of Cline and that they were related to 70 relatives of Cline.
The fertility doctor claimed he only "used his own sperm whenever he didn’t have a donor sample available,” the affidavit said he told them. According to court reports, Cline also said he "felt that he was helping women because they really wanted a baby.”
Cline retired from Reproductive Endocrinology Associates in Indianapolis in 2009.
