In the New York Times, Mihir Zaveri describes complex questions facing the biological children of Donald Cline, a fertility doctor who used his own sperm — instead of sperm from anonymous donors or from patients' husbands — "on an untold number of occasions" when working with couples at an Indianapolis-area fertility clinic in the 1970s and 1980s.
The case has raised "enormously consequential" questions for the doctor's former patients and children born to them, Zaveri reports. Half siblings sharing Cline's genetics have already turned up on commercial genetic testing databases, prompting some of the children to "continually check websites like 23andMe to see if any new half siblings will emerge."
"The authorities who are investigating Dr. Cline have confirmed through DNA testing that two women were biological children of his," Zaveri writes. "Through 23andMe and other similar genetic testing websites, three dozen half siblings of those women have been found, said Jacoba Ballard, 38, one of the biological daughters. She expects the number to grow."