The fertility doctor who secretly inseminated his own patients - BBC Newsnight

In 2014, Jacoba Ballard found out her parent’s fertility doctor was her biological father.

Dr Donald Cline had secretly inseminated his patients. He swapped either a donor’s or husband’s sperm with his own.

In the past five years, more than 90 siblings have been identified through DNA samples.

Many of those still live within 25 miles of each other in Indianapolis.

Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark speaks to Jacoba Ballard, whose journey to expose Dr Cline has been detailed in the Netflix documentary about the scandal, Our Father.

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Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.

[GB-fkeq]

It's knowing that his client base all likely come from the same general geographic area. So with about 90 plus siblings all living within 25 miles of each other and not knowing they're related the chances of at least 2 of them engaging in an unknown incestual relationship would be a real possibility. The actions of this doctor are unethical on so many levels

[sidroik]

It is sickening that any doctor would act in such a despicable way, disgusting!

[duffduffington]

Have him pay child support for all of his kids.

[public.public]

"He swapped either a donor’s or husband’s sperm with his own."
That's rape.

[RealUlrichLeland]

There was a Dutch doctor who did the same and basically got away with it. People didn't even seem that angry at him, a lot of the people born from his sperm donations were actually proud to have him as their biological father. Weird

[kylesmith]

If this happened to a member of my family, I would probably be in jail right now. What a slime-ball.

[thearieszodiac]

For people who dont know. The mothers in some of these cases had samples of their husbands sperm to be used. Instead of using theirs he used his own. Ive also seen some people look at it as well if your asking for a donor you dont get to pick etc, there are screenings for things like health issues and such that need to go through as well which wasnt done with the doctors sperm. Almost all of the kids 94 and counting have severe autoimmune diseases and issues that stem from his side which then pass onto their kids and HAS passed to their kids. The children of this psycho now have to tell their kids to be wary when getting into relationships because he has fucked up the gene pool of that area. On top of that you can set a preference for hair, skin and eye colour of donors and in several of these situations it was a blonde/blue eyed person being raised by dark hair/dark eyes and they immediately had a sense they don't belong. Please watch the documentary and try and put yourself in the situation of the kids, the mothers and the non biological fathers (especially those who in some cases genuinely thought the children were theirs) in this scenarios.

[pauljansen]

We had a "doctor" like this man over here as well....the man made sure he had about 100 kids with 100 different mothers...

[Luther_Luffeigh]

Selfishly father 90 babies but won’t give medical data to save their lives?

[kittyss]

Can you imagine.. dating some one.. who may turn out to be your half brother... Oh My God!! 😓

[m.l.r]

The documentary about this doctor was really good, this doctor is pure evil 😈

[deborahray]

At least it seems her should have lost his license, & sued for malpractice. Overwhelming

[ebukaisrael]

Scientific rape is a criminal act but not punishable under medical law

[Deeok]

The sad part is the doctor has many genetic issues and now these children have health problems.

[juice]

Jesus Christ, what in the actual shit.

[magnacz]

How come the lot of them or at lest many of them can’t bring him to court for breach of trust and misinformation. You don’t want to merry a close relative because of an egomaniac.

[mini_kimmyy]

Here after the Netflix documentary. I am so damn furious. On top of that, the court system was fcked up with this too not giving him any sentence. These kids wanted to kill themselves from the pain. I'm mad as hell for them. Thank God there were recordings, too.

[mac]

I’m confused about what has happened in this case. Can someone kindly explain it to me? Thank you

[fdk]

Don't they all do that, these doctors? There's got to be quite a few out there who has done this

[titteryenot]

There is actually quite a well-documented phenomenon termed “genetic sexual attraction” to describe the intense physical and emotional feelings that some people experience following restored contact between an adopted person and a close member of his or her birth family. Some people believe genetic attraction to be a delayed by-product of “missed bonding”. Not sure how evolution selects for this, but it’s curious (and simultaneously alarming) to note.🤔