Donald Cline was a respected gynecologist in Indianapolis. Between 1974 and 1987, he promised dozens of women that he was inseminating them with sperm from an anonymous donor, a medical student. It was a lie: he used his own, again and again, without any patient knowing.
The secret remained hidden for almost 30 years until Jacoba Ballard, one of his biological daughters, took a DNA test with 23andMe in 2014. What she found left her stunned: dozens of half-brothers and half-sisters, many living less than 40 km from one another, without knowing it. Confronted in 2016, Cline admitted to using his own sperm “about 50 times”. Genetic tests ultimately confirmed at least 94 biological children.
Indiana had no law at the time that penalized fertility fraud. Cline was only convicted of obstruction of justice, with a suspended sentence, and did not spend a single day in prison. The case forced the state to legislate on something that, until then, was legally invisible.
