Fertility Fraud: Definition and Implications

There has been recent news in the media about the sons and daughters of patients born
via artificial insemination suing the clinic from which they were conceived. It turns out, due to
the advent of commercial DNA tests, many people are finding out that they have numerous half
siblings in the world. Tracing the issue back to its root, finds that a few infertility physicians
were using their own sperm to impregnate their patients. This is not only a breach of the
physician-patient relationship, but also of human rights.

One example of this happened in Canada, where Dr. Norman Barwin, now 80, had given the wrong sperm to over 50 patients who later gave birth, in addition to using his own sperm. In 2015, the daughter of his patient had taken a commercial DNA test and had found that her cousin was a relative of Barwin’s. Later on, another patient became suspicious when she gave birth to a daughter in 1990 who was born with Celiac’s disease, a condition neither she nor her husband had. The daughter of that patient took a DNA test and found that she was half siblings with the daughter of the previously mentioned patient. In 2016, Dr. Barwin was accused in a lawsuit of giving the wrong sperm to an additional 50 to 100 women who later gave birth.

When confronted with the fact that several of his patients had children with his DNA, Barwin had
claimed that he was calibrating the automatic sperm counter with his own semen and that some of it
probably got mixed in with donor sperm. This excuse is highly unlikely as it was found that he had
fathered 11 children from his patients.

“Fertility fraud,” defined as “people conceived through errors, misdeeds in the industry,” is the
recently coined phrase for this type of crime. However, fertility fraud has been going on for quite
some time. Only recently has it been more in the media due to the availability of commercialized
DNA tests. Another example of fertility fraud happened in Indianapolis in 1979.       

                               

Dr. Donald Cline (shown in the image) had opened a fertility clinic at a time when fertility treatment was a relatively novel specialty. A few years ago, a group of women filed a complaint against Cline saying that they found out they were all half siblings and they had all been conceived using sperm from Cline’s office. It was later found that Cline had fathered more than 48 children born between 1979 and 1986. When this was reported to local law enforcement, it was said that there is no law in Indiana against Cline for using his own sperm to inseminate his patients. The only crime he committed was a felony, obstruction of justice for lying to state investigators. He was sentenced to a year in prison.

Regardless of whether or not fertility fraud is a crime is not important. This idea violates
patients’ rights to know what sort of medical treatment they are getting. This violates the
physician-patient relationship of informed consent. Cline could claim that he had benefited his
patients. He had greatly increased their chances of getting pregnant, since he was using fresh
sperm, which has higher rates of success than frozen sperm. However, patients expressed shock and
outrage at learning what he had done. One patient stated that she felt like she had
been raped.

We as physicians (and future physicians) play an important role in making sure our patients feel
comfortable and safe. A betrayal of this relationship is a crime in human rights. This has further
implications in the future of fertility treatment in general, as well as tougher penalties for the
perpetrators. Since fertility fraud is relatively unprecedented, it still waits to be seen how these cases will be handled legally.

Cassie Zhi     DUCOM 2020

Addendum: Almost Family is an American television series based on the Australian television series, Sisters, about a pioneering fertility doctor who uses his own genetic material to conceive dozens of children.