Donald Lee Cline (born December 10, 1938) is a former American medical doctor of obstetrics and gynecology and convicted felon.
In 1979, Cline opened his clinic on 2020 West 86th Street in Indianapolis and specialized in reproductive endocrinology & infertility.
[5] In 2014 when Jacoba Ballard, a daughter of a former patient of Cline, reviewed the results of her at-home DNA test, she discovered a biological connection to eight previously unknown half-siblings.
[a] Her genetic genealogy research ultimately revealed Cline, her mother's fertility doctor, as her biological father.
[10] Then Indiana attorney general Tim DeLaney declined to prosecute because "there was no law forbidding Cline’s conduct.
[12] Documents show that he had told investigators, "I can emphatically say that at no time did I ever use my own sample for insemination nor was I a donor.
"[16] As of May 2022, Cline had paid out more than $1.35 million to settle three civil lawsuits filed by donor children and families.
[9] The Cline fertility fraud and similar doctor-donated sperm cases exposed a lack of legislation specific to infertility patients' and their children's rights.
Increases the penalty for deception involving the identity of a person or the identity or quantity of property to a Level 6 felony if the offense involves a misrepresentation relating to: (1) a medical procedure, device, or drug; and (2) human reproductive material.
Urges the legislative council to assign the topic of fertility laws, including gestational surrogacy, to an appropriate study committee.
Cline's own auto-immune condition, rheumatoid arthritis, would have excluded him as an eligible sperm donor at his own clinic.
Their concern with consanguinity and its potential genetic disorders increases as their own children grow up and develop intimate relationships.
[27][28] In an extended profile piece in The Atlantic, reporter Sarah Zhang wrote: The donor children have begun cataloging the ways their own paths have crossed, too.
[29]Donald Cline's fertility fraud is the subject of a Netflix documentary titled Our Father which premiered in May 2022.