Netflix has quickly become one of the most prolific producers of documentaries, serving up some truly fascinating and authentic titles.
The streaming site’s latest documentary, released today, is no exception.
The true-crime doc Our Father has left viewers sickened by the intriguing and unsettling story of ex-fertility doctor, Donald Cline.
Cline fathered over 50 children during the 1970s and 1980s by artificially inseminating his patients with his own sperm at his practice in Indianapolis, US.
He was exposed for his heinous crimes by his biological daughter, Jacoba Ballard, who was an only child conceived via donor sperm.
The documentary is so sickening that it has viewers asking whether this could really be a true story? Here’s everything you need to know.
Is Our Father based on a true story?
It may be hard to believe but Netflix’s latest documentary, Our Father, is actually based on a true story.
The one-off investigative film takes a deep dive into the real story of Donald Cline and the children he fathered through illegal insemination.
The documentary follows Jacoba Ballard, who was one of the first of Cline’s biological children to piece the story together.
Jacoba had known that she was conceived using a donor since she was a child and in 2014 at the age of 33, she began searching for half-siblings who shared her donor.
She signed up for an online forum for adoptees and donor-conceived children, and it didn’t take long for her to meet another woman whose mother had also been treated by Cline.
After looking at the woman’s Facebook photos Jacoba thought they could be related. The woman also knew another woman whose mother had been treated by Cline and she had a sister, so all four women decided to take at-home DNA tests using 23andMe.
The DNA test results showed that not only were the women all half-sisters, but that there were also four other matches already on the database, bringing the total number of half-siblings up to eight.
The DNA tests also showed that Cline’s story didn’t add up. He’d told patients that donors were medical residents and each donor was only used for three successful pregnancies.
But the tests showed that he’d used one donor at least eight times and with the half-siblings being born between the years of 1979 to 1986, that was too long of a period to be from a medical resident.
In 2016, Jacoba spoke to a local news station about the number of children born using the same donor, but they had still not been able to piece together who their father was.
As their DNA investigations continued, one name kept popping up - Donald Cline.
Ballard and six of her siblings managed to arrange a meeting with Cline, where he admitted to using his own sperm but said that records had been destroyed.
Recalling the moment she found out in the new documentary, Ballard said: “I was in shock,
“There were so many emotions, so many questions. He lied about a donor being used. Why did he do it? How long did he do it, and how many siblings do we have?”
Cline is believed to have fathered over 50 children using his own sperm on patients, and that number keeps climbing. Speaking to the Guardian, Jacoba said: “We actually had a new sibling pop up the day the trailer dropped.”
Where is Donald Cline now?
The whereabouts of Donald Cline are currently unknown, as the disgraced ex-fertility doctor hasn't spoken out since the scandal was unveiled.
But Ballard says that he is still out enjoying his life, telling the Guardian: “He’s active around his community.
“He’s going to grandchildren’s swim meets and things like that. There’s no hiding.
“That’s the thing, he’s still out and about. In his head, I don’t think he thinks he’s done much wrong.”
Cline is now in his 80s and a lot of the nonconsensual inseminations took place before DNA testing was widely available, which is why he was able to get away with it for so long.
He worked as a fertility doctor until 2009 and in 2018 he surrendered his medical licence and was banned from practising ever again following revelations about what he’d done.
But there were no state laws that actually criminalised what he was doing at the time and this meant that Cline was only ever charged with obstructing justice and was let off with a $500 fine.
However, in 2018 the mothers and siblings did successfully manage to get legislation passed in Indiana that makes illicit donor inseminations illegal, but there is still no federal law.
