Family Law, Health Care / Medicine, Kids

I Want To Put A Baby In You: Extreme Sperm Donation

One sperm donor claims to have fathered 800 -- yes, 800 -- children....

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sperm egg IVF in vitro fertilizationThe latest sperm “donation” scandal to hit the news has made previous “do-it-yourself” donors mentioned here – such as New York math professor Ari Nagel – seem tame. And Nagel’s generous donations, compared to the case below, seem reasonable. (Where my libertarians at?!)

The Dubious Doctor. Indiana doctor Donald Cline has been charged with obstructing justice and faces up to five years in prison if convicted. According to the allegations in the case, Dr. Cline told his patients that he was using sperm donated by medical students. Instead, Dr. Cline was apparently using his own sperm for many patients. The daughter of one of Dr. Cline’s patients recently discovered that she had at least nine half-siblings fathered by Dr. Cline. (Interestingly, the woman began her investigation after taking a commercial DNA test — so those Ancestry.com ads have some great new material!)

The woman—whose biological father was Dr. Cline—complained to the Indiana Attorney General’s office. Dr. Cline is now in hot water over allegedly false statements, supposedly in conflict with DNA results, that he made in the course of the investigation. Dr. Cline is scheduled for a pre-trial conference hearing October 17.

Not the First and Not the Worst. Of course, Dr. Cline was not the first service provider to use his own sperm when supplies ran short. He also was not the most prolific. Many years ago, Bertold Wiesner started a fertility clinic in London in the 1940s. The clinic helped conceive over 1500 babies. Wiesner and his wife claimed to use “highly intelligent” friends as sperm donors. It turns out that Wiesner provided his own sperm approximately two-thirds of the time … and fathered around 600 babies.

There is also the infamous Utah case where an employee for the Reproductive Medical Technologies fertility clinic, Tom Lippert, was swapping out donor and patients’ sperm and replacing it with his own. Lippert was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a felon (not our favorite kind of donor), and he had served time for holding a woman hostage in a black box for weeks. Perhaps aside from screening donors better, fertility clinics need to add better employee screening to their to do lists.

(Separately, X-Files fans will remember the famous “Small Potatoes” episode, involving janitor and Luke Skywalker wannabe Eddie Van Blundht. The “H,” of course, is silent.)

No Consent. Interestingly, the statute of limitations may have run for many of Dr. Cline’s patients’ civil claims. And many former patients may not have an interest in pressing charges or bringing suit for a “wrongful life” claim related to their kids. Finally, the damages involved in such a claim are hard to quantify. How much did the parents suffer by having Dr. Cline as a donor instead of an anonymous medical student?

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But it seems odd that Dr. Cline will only be subject to criminal liability because of his alleged obstruction of justice—Martha-Stewart style—during the investigation into his conduct. While the crime of switching from anonymous medical student donor sperm to doctor sperm is hardly “rape,” it certainly does violate the consent of the recipient and the contractual understanding between Dr. Cline and his patients. Moreover, it adds a difficult element to the familial relationships between Dr. Cline and his children; in short, Dr. Cline’s kids know exactly who their father is. The intended parents probably would have preferred the anonymity of the medical student donor.

Yes Consent.  The key difference between Nagel and cases like Dr. Cline’s is consent. A donor who is open about what they are doing allows the recipient to evaluate and make an informed decision. Unfortunately, patients who rely on the system, doctors, and sperm banks are repeatedly getting something other than planned. Fortunately, these cases are news because they are relatively rare. And the children are generally the result of an older system with fewer FDA-testing requirements and agreed-upon best practices. Still, I could envision appropriate legislation that makes fraudulent use of sperm a criminal act in itself.

Post-Script: Trying to be the Best (Worst?)  In case you were wondering, the person with the most kids in history may be frequent sperm donor Simon Watson. And importantly, the kids were conceived consensually!

Watson claims to have donated his genetic material once a week for the last 16 years. He currently believes that he has around 800 children, and he hopes to break the 1,000 mark before he dies. Dream big or go home, folks. For his part, Watson is an over-achiever, stating he would “like to get the world record ever, make sure no-one’s going to break it, get as many as possible.”  So if you, dear reader, want to be the Barry Bonds of sperm donation, you have a long way to go before ousting Simon Watson.

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Ellen TrachmanEllen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, adoption, and estate planning. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

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