The term is also used in cases where donor eggs are used without consent[1] and more broadly, in instances where doctors and other medical professionals exploit opportunities that arise when people use assisted reproductive technology to address fertility issues.
This may give rise to a number of different types of fraud involving insurance, unnecessary procedures, theft of eggs, and other issues related to fertility treatment.
[5] Asch and his two partners were accused of taking eggs and embryos from patients without their consent, using them to cause pregnancies in other women, and defrauding insurance companies.
[4] There are many other types of fertility fraud, and they may take place at various stages of the process:[3][4] Hundreds of children have been fathered by non-consensual insemination worldwide by their physicians, including in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, but without specific laws outlawing it, the legal consequences are unclear.
[30] In 2020, Somethin' Else and Sony Music Entertainment released a podcast telling the story of Jan Karbaat and his children called "The Immaculate Deception".
[25] In 2022, Netflix released the documentary Our Father by Jason Blum in the true crime genre about the Donald Cline case in the 1970s and 1980s, to mixed reviews.