The dark deeds of the fertility doctor, Donald Cline had to someday shine through because of the extent of his crime and the vast number of people affected. Our Father is about a fertility doctor who impregnated hundreds of women without their consent. These women were his patients who he was treating for having fertility issues and helping them get pregnant through artificial insemination.

It was disturbing for some families to find out that their own father isn’t biologically connected to them. In the documentary ‘Our Father’, there are in-depth accounts of these children and their families, battling to accept the bitter truth.

How they discovered Donald Cline was their father

DNA testing is so easy these days. All people need to do is bring home a test kit and find out in minutes if they’re connected to anybody that they don’t know. The percentage of your matching DNA is also revealed to gauge how distant the relative can be.

It started when Jacoba Ballard, an only child, knew of her birth through a sperm donor. She wanted to find out if she shared a blood bond with anybody. So, she got the at-home DNA test kit and went ahead with the testing. She was shocked to see that she had seven half-siblings in the area! It soon became clear that all of their connection was to the same fertility clinic and Dr. Cline at the center of it. They found out he had impregnated many who visited his clinic; as they kept finding more people through the test kit. The number of his children crossed 50.

What made him do it?

In the Netflix documentary, his children got together to discuss what they think was the reason behind Cline’s heinous acts. They thought Cline did it to create a ‘pure’ caucasian race. He was too much into religion which makes them think of him as a traditional fascist who believed in white supremacy. He wanted to create his own ‘Aryan clan’ and preserve the purity of the caucasian line.

Cline got away with a fine of $500 because there was no law that forbids the use of unknown sperm while doing artificial insemination. Although after his children reported him, there is now a law that takes care of the same. Here’s a picture of him.

In 1979 when Donald Cline set up his clinic for the first time, there were no sperm banks or a structure for sperm donation in place. Doctors would ask good-looking medical students to donate their sperm. Cline was a famous doctor of his time in Indianapolis. And had great success rates as he would use ‘fresh‘ samples instead of frozen ones that most other doctors in the area did. His own ‘fresh‘ samples became the cause for his popularity.

Some people weren’t too bothered by the revelation. The reason being: The sperm donor to them was unknown anyway, so how does it matter now if it’s the doctor himself. Some others were more than shocked to find out their own fathers weren’t their biological fathers; because Cline put his own sperm and discarded theirs.

If you haven’t yet watched it, do check it out here. And if you’re looking for more documentaries, you know Netflix has loads of them.