Indiana fertility doctor admits using own sperm

To couples at the end of their rope who wanted children but could not conceive them for medical reasons, Dr. Donald Cline was a savior of sorts, offering to match the women with sperm from anonymous men resembling their partners.

Many couples sought Cline out at his Indianapolis-area fertility clinic during the 1970s and ‘80s. They had children, who grew up and had children of their own.

What the couples did not know was that on an untold number of occasions, Cline was not using the sperm of anonymous donors. He was using his own. Now, Cline’s former patients and their children are asking enormously consequential questions: How many women did he violate? How many children did he father? Possibly most perplexing, why did he do it?

Authorities, who began investigations into Cline in 2014 and 2015, have confirmed through DNA testing that two women were biological children of his. Through 23andMe and other similar genetic-testing websites, three dozen halfsiblings of those women have been found, said Jacoba Ballard, 38, one of the biological daughters. She expects the number to grow.

In some instances, state prosecutors said, Cline even told some women that he was using their husbands’ sperm but provided his own.

“It’s definitely emotional on a lot of different levels, seeing how upset it makes my mom, some of the things that go around in my head, like, ‘Am I the way I am in some respect because he is who he is?’ It plays mind games with you,” said Matt White, one of the half-siblings. “There’s times I get really angry. I’m confused. Like, why?”

Cline did not return a phone call requesting comment.

In December, Cline pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice, admitting he lied to state investigators when denying the accusations that he used his own sperm. He acknowledged that he had given his own sperm to several patients, according to court papers. The exact number is not known.

Cline was given a 365-day suspended jail sentence. He surrendered his medical license to the state last month, and a state medical board barred him from ever getting a license again. Cline retired in 2009 and his license had expired in 2017, according to prosecutors.

Cline previously had told the women that he used sperm from anonymous hospital residents, and that he used the same donor for only up to three pregnancies, the complaint said. The doctor also told them that all his records were shredded and that he did not recall any additional details, according to the complaint.

In Virginia in 1992, an infertility specialist was convicted on 52 counts of fraud and perjury for artificially inseminating patients with his own sperm, among other charges.

The Marion County prosecutor’s office, in written responses to questions, said simply that “Indiana law has different provisions” than in the Virginia case.

The office said that Cline was not being criminally investigated anymore.