Our Father, Netflix’s newest offering, adds to the service’s collection of horrific real crime documentaries. It narrates the unsettling narrative of fertility doctor Donald Cline who used his own sperm to inseminate his female patients who came to him for artificial insemination. He is the biological father of more than 90 children in the United States. Keep reading to know where is dr Cline now.
Jacoba Ballard, one of Cline’s kids, is featured in the documentary; she and Fox59 reporter Angela Ganote broke the story in 2014. She then went out to her many step-siblings via Facebook after discovering them using the DNA testing sites Ancestry.com and 23andMe.
Was Dr. Cline Prosecuted For His Crimes?
In 1979, Cline launched his clinic, and up until 1986, he may have used his own sperm to inseminate women. The sperm donors, he told his patients, were medical students, and no patient’s sperm was utilized more than three times. Cline’s biological children found out he used his own sperm through records of genetic testing. According to the documentary, Cline admitted using his own sperm when confronted by six of the half-siblings and claimed their parents’ documents had been destroyed.
Despite the victims’ and children’s continued pleas for justice, Cline was never prosecuted for rape. A lawyer says in the documentary that it would have been difficult to charge Cline with rape because of his high public profile as the leading reproductive specialist in Indianapolis at the time and the lack of particular legislation in Indiana calling what he did a sexual violation.
However, the victims who were interviewed for the program all agreed that they never would have wanted him to be the sperm donor and that they felt violated by his actions. Experts joined them in pointing out that Cline would have had to masturbate someplace close while the women were waiting for insemination, and he could have still been experiencing the after-effects of arousal during the visit.
In 2016, Cline was charged with two allegations of felony obstruction of justice: for lying to the attorney general’s office about using his sperm with two victims; and for threatening Ballard with litigation for “slander and libel”. According to The Atlantic, after entering a guilty plea, he was sentenced to one year of probation, fined $500, and had his medical license revoked (albeit he had retired in 2009). (opens in new tab). Fox59 reports that Cline has paid over $1.3 million in compensation to his victims and their families.
Where Is Dr Cline Now?
The 2019 piece in The Atlantic about Cline notes that he is now in his 80s and still resides in his birthplace of Indianapolis. Although he avoided the spotlight, he continued to enjoy widespread support. A number of Cline’s offspring also call Indianapolis home, with some residing just a few blocks away from their biological dad.
No one can say for sure what motivated his actions. According to the documentary, Cline is a devout Christian and an elder at his church, with Christian sayings plastered all over his workplace. A verse from Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I knew you,” was another verse he frequently cited. He also has connections to Quiverfull, a Christian sect that supports having as many children as possible.
In an interview with Fox59, his old church addressed the Netflix documentary, saying that Cline had admitted to them that he had been unethical but that they had no clue about the depth of his lying. They tell us that if they had known then what they know now, Cline would have been removed from his position of responsibility inside the church, as Fox59 reported. Since then, Cline supposedly attended a different religious institution.
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Dr. Cline Used His Own Sperm For What Reason?
This is one of the documentary’s most puzzling queries. Cline virtually begged his own children to keep the tale quiet after word started getting around, saying it would destroy his reputation in the church and the community. His clinic was decorated with Christian iconography, and the documentary strongly suggests that he did so because he believed that God wanted him to produce many children with blonde hair and blue eyes. But nobody knows for sure.
Cline maintains that the children conceived using his own sperm were healthy, even though he only used it “sparingly.” The vast majority of the bio kids questioned in the documentary report experiencing comparable health issues, such as blood clotting and autoimmune illnesses. Cline claims his acts were not sexual in nature.
Where Are Donald Cline Kids Now?
Right present, we know of 94 of them. They are all unluckily close to Cline and live in a small area around his home in Indiana. Many of these adult half-siblings, who claim to have received little justice in court, apparently want their story shared. According to Lucie Jourdan, director of Our Father, Cline informed him that the “world doesn’t need to know” about his wrongdoings. This is where she parts ways with you.
Jourdan remarked in her director’s statement for the Our Father press notes, “The catharsis that the film is delivering these siblings, seeing their narrative finally told, already makes this a wild success to me.” That’s why Cline did everything he could to keep them quiet during filming and afterward.
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