Our Father, Netflix’s recent offering, is another terrifying true crime documentary. It details the tragic story of Donald Cline, a fertility specialist, who artificially conceived his female patients using his own sperm. He is the biological father of more than 100 children in the United States.
The documentary depicts Jacoba Ballard, one of Cline’s children, who, with the assistance of Fox59 reporter Angela Ganote, broke the story in 2014. Via DNA testing websites Ancestry.com and 23andMe, she later learned about her extensive number of step-siblings and contacted them on Facebook.
Is Donald Cline Still Alive?
It’s terrifying to read that Cline ultimately got away with his evil deeds despite the story garnering national and international exposure.
The reports say that Cline is still alive but prefers to maintain a low profile in his native Indianapolis, Indiana. Despite fathering almost 100 people without their mothers’ permission, he continues to have a large following in the community.
source: Wikipedia
The Story of Donald Cline
The Atlantic claims that in 1979, when infertility was a relatively new medical specialty, Cline launched his clinic. As a result, he immediately established a solid reputation in the community and was sought out by couples who were having difficulty becoming pregnant naturally.
Cline is regarded as an influential member of his community, as highlighted in the Netflix documentary. He is a skilled physician, and an elder in his church, and has consistently been seen as “empathetic and full of compassion” by his friends and even by some of his patients, according to a comment from The Atlantic.
A top fertility doctor had a sickening secret: he was using his own sperm. Decades later, his “children” came together to pursue justice — this is how they broke the news to their fourteenth (!) sibling.
Our Father is now on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/THtHW2W7O3
— Netflix (@netflix) May 11, 2022
Cline is still alive and reportedly in his 80s. He continues to reside in his Indiana hometown. The fact that some of his children live only a few streets away from him, in addition to the fact that he doesn’t feel bad about what he did, is what really hits him in the stomach. According to Liz White, a former patient, “the previous doctor lives down the block over there.” My mother resides in this town, while I am a neighbor down the street.
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In Indiana, What He Did Was Not Considered a Sexual Offence Under the Law.
Despite the fact that his former patients did not give him their consent, what Dr. Cline did is not technically regarded as a sexual offense under Indiana law. In the end, he wasn’t charged with rape or violence for using bodily waste.
The only things the attorney general brought against him were two counts of obstructing justice for lying to them about using his sperm on patients and for threatening to sue Jacoba Ballard for “slander and libel.” He entered a guilty plea to both charges.
According to The Atlantic, “there is no legislation directly prohibiting a doctor from putting his own sperm in his patients in Indiana, or in most other states, for that matter.”
He ultimately lost his license, but by then he had retired in 2009. He was initially facing a 365-day sentence, but that was changed to a year of probation. Moreover, he was only required to pay a pitiful $500 fine.
Was His Motivation Religious in Nature?
Since Cline refused to admit to a motive, there were no obvious reasons for his earlier actions, although there are suggestions. Extreme Religious beliefs, particularly those of the Quiverfull sect, which “encourages members to reproduce as prolifically as possible to satisfy God’s mandate to ‘be fruitful and multiply,'” according to Time, are widely considered to have served as Cline’s inspiration.
As seen in the video, he adorned his clinic with Christian artwork and trinkets and frequently quoted Jeremiah 1:5, which states, “Before I made you in the womb of your mother, I knew you.” Moreover, Cline “had his staff say prayers aloud and counseled patients to pray on their treatment decisions,” according to Time.
Former Indiana doctor Donald Cline front and center in Times Square. Documentary film “Our Father” debuts on @netflix Wednesday morning. @JacobaBallard came to me 7 years ago and I helped her get the truth. The film is insane. pic.twitter.com/wsroSr1osG
— Angela Ganote (@angelaganote) May 9, 2022
There was a cost associated with his apparent white nationalist ambition of having a lot of children with blue eyes and blonde hair. Despite Cline’s claims that all of his children are healthy, the majority of individuals who have questioned the claim that they all have autoimmune disorders and blood clotting issues in common.
The doctor said that he ceased using his own sperm in the late 1980s when sperm banks were more widespread and DNA testing was widely utilized (although he admitted using his around 50 times). Moreover, he asserted that all of the records had been erased in the past.
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Where Are His Children Now?
A measure outlawing fertility fraud was passed in 2018 thanks to the efforts of Cline’s biological children, particularly Matt White and his mother Liz White. The purpose of the measure is to make sure that any deception in medical treatment is treated as a criminal and to stop more cases of reproductive fraud. To be more precise, Indiana was the first state in America to criminalize Cline’s conduct of using his own sperm without his patients’ permission.
But, there is currently no federal legislation that would deem Cline’s actions to be unlawful.
Mereka terus mencari ayah biologis mereka dengan mencocokkan DNA mereka dengan database publik dan nama ‘Cline’ terus bermunculan. Mereka akhirnya melacak kerabat jauh yang menyatakan bahwa dia memiliki sepupu bernama Donald Cline yang merupakan dokter spesialis kesuburan. pic.twitter.com/CTzndWGHO2
— lia. (@Vascobuns) May 7, 2022
The catharsis that the film is delivering these siblings, having their narrative fully told, already makes this a crazy success to me, according to Our Father’s director Lucie Jordan in a statement.
“Cline tried everything he could to stop them and the production of this movie. He said, “The world doesn’t need to know.” We disagree, though. May their cries echo throughout the world when the heinousness of his deeds is finally exposed.