Dr. Donald Cline - A Case Of Broken Medical Ethics

3 days ago

Why will someone who is said to be a medical practitioner use his own sperm on unsuspected women because he was opportune to be in the position as a practitioner thereby breaking trust and the code of conduct. This is unethical and to me, it should be a criminal offense. Before you beat yourself hard about not knowing what actually happened, I will be sharing the case of Donald Cline and leave you to be the judge and the jury at the same time because in this case, you can be both.

Dr Donald Cline born in Illinois on December 10th 1938, and he went to the University of Illinois for his undergraduate degree on basketball scholarship which he lost when he broke his shoulder. He struggled to send himself through University studying medicine and in 1959, he got married.

In his final year in medical, Cline hit a 4 year old girl named Angela who ran across the road while trying to reach out to her mother. The girl later died and this was the turning point for him which caused him to give his life to Christ. In Medicine school, he developed interests an studied OBGYN and in 1971, he began working as a OBGYN in a private hospital.

He worked really hard to make sure that he climbed the ladders to become a highly recommended OBGYN (Obstetrician and gynaecologist). He performed donor artificial insemination for people with fertility issues. In this method, the sperm sample is placed in a syringe and injected into female patient. While we have artificial insemination readily available now, it wasn't the same in the past as there were very little number of sperm banks available and people believed that fresher sperm were better than stored ones.

As he was doing the insemination for women, they were grateful to him because a lot of the women were desperate and wanted to have children of their own. With donor insemination, there was a level of secrecy associated with it where the donor isn't known to the patient. In 1979, he opened his clinic known as Indianapolis Infertility Inc legally but operated as Reproductive Endocrinology Associates.

Soon, Dr. Robert Clover joined the clinic and was there between the period of 1987 and 1991, Cline also had a nurse known as Jan Shore and other staffs. His staffs said that he was a religious person and would pray for a very long time and would hold programs in his home where he would even baptize people in his pool.

In his clinic, Dr. Cline preferred to use fresh sperm for his donor insemination and he does this within an hour after the sperm has been donated. Doctors at this time didn't keep records of donors so as to keep them anonymous and prevent paper trail in the future. His patients preferred him because of his care and discretion when finding a donor because at this time, patients couldn't pick their own donors

When they came, they had terrific results and he soon became the go to OBGYN when it came to referral and the top dog in his field. He was also highly recommended when it came to laser surgeries to repair fallopian tubes but he was later known for OBGYN and this could be as a result of this case.

But things changed as DNA testing became a major thing in the 2000s. The donor children began to do DNA tests just to be able to identify where their roots were. As they began to do the tests, they found out that they all were forming a tree that looked similar but not certain. If you have seen the documentary video Our Father on Netflix, then you might have an understanding of what I am talking about.

Dr.Cline's career, met with a road block when the name Jacoba ballard came into his life. She was willing to investigate and reveal his dark secret as a result of her mother telling her that her father wasn't her real dad. She was born on August 26th, 1980 and noticed that she was different from her parents and sibling being that she was the only one with Blonde hair and a blue eye while her parents didn't have any of this. She thought she was adopted but her mother's words broke the camel's back.

Her mother told her she was a product of a donor sperm from a medical resident and the insemination was done by Dr. Donald Cline. Her mother explained that the resident sperm would be used only about three times so she suspected that she might have other half siblings out there possibly one or two. In 1999, Jacoba called Dr. Cline's hospital and he answered the call. At this time, she was already 18 years old and she began talking with the doctor. She requested for a paper trail to identify her other siblings but the doctor mentioned that it had been destroyed. She gave up since there was no DNA testing at the time.

Soon she got married and had two kids of her own, and in 2009 Dr. Cline retired from the Reproductive Endocrinology Associates but Jacoba's hunt will continue till 2014. She found a site (AMFOR.net) for individuals born from donors and decided to sign up because she wanted to find her siblings and know her family tree. She included all her information including where she was conceived and soon she began to see people who were from Dr. Cline's clinic. Surprisingly 1 of the siblings claimed to have 5 other siblings after genetic testing which was not what Dr. Cline said as he mentioned that the sperm would not be used more than three times.

She went to do a DNA test so as to be sure if she was part of the family tree of the 3 people she met on the site. After the DNA test, it was shown that she didn't only have the three half siblings but also 7 more half siblings. When she asked her 10 siblings about the fertility clinic used, they all used Dr. Cline's clinic so what happened to the three time rule?

In the search to look for their siblings, they met a second cousin with the surname Swinford which was the maiden name for Dr. Cline's Mother. The cousin also confirmed that Cline was her cousin who was a doctor. They soon realized that they were genetically connected to 70 other Cline relative. So she suspected that it was either Cline used his sample or the sample of his family member.

Soon two siblings along with Jacoba filed a report against Dr. Cline and soon she received reports that the investigation was pending but nothing was done about this. Soon she began to reach out to news media and one eventually became interested in her story. Soon he was asked to go for a paternity test and the result came back positive with a 99.99975% for 57 children.

Dr. Cline was charged with 2 felony counts of obstruction of justice as well as lying to the state. Funny enough, the state was the victim in the trial and not the women or the children and he plead guilty but at the end he received a $500 fine and a suspended sentence from practicing. Will he be practicing after retiring? But the families who were affected filed a civil suit against him and his clinic and were compensated $1.3 million for their emotional pain.

I cannot imagine what these people could have gone through especially with the case of people who wanted to use their husband's sperm but ended up being defrauded by Dr. Cline who used his sperm instead. People complained about the doctor having medical issues such as Rhuematoid Arthritis, and this was transferred to other family. The doctor would go into another room when the women where undressed and waiting for insemination, produce the sperm and then insert it into the women. The doctor wasn't sentenced at the time because fertility fraud wasn't a thing in Indiana at the time but on May 17, 2019, it became a level 6 felony thereby preventing doctors from donor fraud in the future.