Here's what to know about disgraced Indiana fertility doctor Donald Cline.
Sibling Matt White suggests in the film that someone must have known that Cline was inseminating women with his own sperm. We learn in the film that Cline has an affinity for the Bible verse "Jeremiah 1:5," and Ballard notes it's "one of the Bible verses Quiverfull uses." It's unclear if Cline is actually the one speaking in the recording. No one in the office? (An actor for Cline is used in other parts of the film to re-create scenes). "They were in fear that other races were infiltrating and the white race would eventually disappear," she says. It's implied in the doc that Cline collected his own sperm just before he inseminated patients. I don't know," he says in the film. She says the Indiana Attorney General's Office sent her emails, she looked up the people who replied and everyone copied on the emails, and through that, she found that "one of the people with the state" had a "Quiverfull" email address. Quiverfull is an ultra-conservative Christian movement mentioned in the film. Cline is currently alive and in his 80s. The Medical Licensing Board of Indiana revoked his license in 2018.
There have been other stories about fertility doctors who abused their positions, and even a short-lived Fox drama built around the idea.
Netflix has enjoyed its share of success with similarly themed and executed fare, "The Tinder Swindler" being a recent example. The sense of violation that this story entails is almost palpable, and "Our Father" certainly conveys that. It's nonetheless remarkable hearing one of the children discuss finding out about being connected to Cline by watching an episode of "Dr. Phil."
Jourdan uses hackneyed techniques, often undermining, and worst yet, trivializing these crimes.
And the obvious reenactments of an actor playing Cline in scenes with the real-life Ballard are strained, at best; amateurish at worst. In this plastic documentary, they’re the only tangible link to reality. For much of the film, the primary question eating at the victims is “why?”—what would drive Cline to inseminate these women? The unnecessary part, however, springs from the sound of a man moaning whenever the number increases. Thanks to popular titles like “Abducted in Plain Sight,” “Making a Murderer,” “The Keepers,” and “ Tiger King,” among many others, Netflix has built a reputation through its true crime documentaries. With its wild twists and turns, the genre has lent itself well to the “win the internet news cycle” of memes and gifs preferred by the streaming giant.
Where is Dr. Donald Cline from Netflix's Our Father documentary now? Find out what happened to Don Cline here.
Despite the fact that what Cline did was undeniably a sexual violation, a somewhat crass and unsympathetic lawyer explains in the documentary that it was not legally—according to Indiana state law—rape. Because of that, in 2017, Cline was charged only with obstruction of justice, for lying to the attorney general’s office about using his sperm on patients. One of his former patients interviewed for the Atlantic story, Liz White, told the magazine the former doctor “lives down the street over there. Though he’s played by an actor, Keith Boyle, in the movie, he refused to participate in the film.
Simple, unbelievable and simply unbelievable. That, roughly, is the arc of Lucie Jourdan's 90-minute Netflix documentary about fertility doctor Donald Cline ...
It gives too little space to the unresponsiveness of the district attorney’s office – alerted by Jacoba early on – and the extraordinary fact that it was impossible to prosecute Cline over what he did to the women because none of that amounted to a crime under the then-current law. The best of the true-crime documentaries that are now strewn across Netflix and other platforms take their stories as starting points, thin ends of wedges with which to crack open wider issues. Her children go to school with the children of another sibling and her husband unknowingly coached them all at softball. The Smiths went to Cline, who had a reputation as the best in what was then the new field of fertility treatment and artificial insemination. The good doctor – and devout Christian, church elder and respected member of the community – told them that medical students were used as donors, each no more than three times to limit any future problems with consanguinity (the medical term for unwitting siblings later having children together). The couple went ahead and nine months later Jacoba was born. That, roughly, is the arc of Lucie Jourdan’s 90-minute Netflix documentary about fertility doctor Donald Cline, who spent 30 years secretly using his own sperm to impregnate the women who came to him for treatment.
The film tells the story of Indy fertility specialist, Donald Cline, and how his biological children got justice. It premieres on Netflix May 11.
And I think that everybody has to be honest with themselves on where they are at today and do what's best for them and their family and to give each other grace going through the process." "I have resources (that) I'll be posting for people," she said. "What resulted was a really authentic moment where .... she'd forgotten all this, and she could be in it, and I think that kind of helped with the healing process," Jourdan said. So we're getting that little bit of justice now, and hopefully it brings awareness." "Do you want to find out someday that you married your brother or your sister?" "It's tough and it's hard, but it's reality. When asked what she wants people to take away from the documentary, Ballard emphasized the importance of consent. "It always came from the victim's perspective." Ballard reached out to Ganote back in 2015, asking her to look into the story. "I've taken on that role, and sometimes it is frustrating, overwhelming, but I wouldn't want it any other way. "And he never gave them a choice." Eventually, Ballard and some of her other half-siblings confronted Cline, who admitted to using his own sperm to inseminate patients.
The film, released on Wednesday (11 May), introduces Jacoba Ballard who discovered she had seven half-siblings after taking an at-home DNA test.
That judge should be ashamed of themselves, what a slap in the face!” This isn't consensual, it's a violation and sexual assault. “Watching Our Father on Netflix and I am so disgusted!” one viewer said.
The new programme tells the story of leading fertility doctor Donald Cline, who covertly inseminated many of his female patients and fathered over 50 children ...
Other viewers were left stunned by the extent of Donald's deceit, with one person tweeting: "#OurFather has to be the craziest documentary I've watched in a while," while another added: "Wow. #OurFather on Netflix was a crazy and wild ride. I'm sick to my stomach," while another added: "#OurFather has to be one of the most disturbing things I've ever watched. One person wrote: "#OurFather documentary on Netflix has to be one of the most evil true story documentaries I have ever seen.
A small-town doctor with a God complex secretly impregnated dozens of unsuspecting women under the guise of using donor sperm. His crimes were uncovered ...
There is, however, a sense that it could have taken more time in exploring the human fallout of this story. Starting a family was all that they wanted, and Cline was just the man who could help them out. Dr Cline, his old assistant says in the film, had assured his patients that the same donor would not be used for more than three samples, so as to avoid the ethically reprehensible scenario where a bunch of people with the same father were occupying a small geographical area.
Netflix's 'Our Father' recounts the case of Indianapolis doctor Donald Cline, who used his own sperm to impregnate dozens of women. Where is he now?
The documentary points out that there is no federal law to make illicit donor insemination illegal. According to DNA data collected through 23andMe, Cline used one donor at least eight times, resulting in eight biological siblings born between 1979 and 1986. One of these siblings, Jacoba Ballard, started to piece together the deception after she began looking for her half siblings. Cline opened his clinic in 1979, when infertility practice was still a new—and relatively unregulated—medical specialty. And he did it over and over and over again.” As one victim’s daughter explained during an interview for the documentary: “It’s disgusting to sit there and lay in bed at night and wonder if the person that created you is some racist bigot, and he used my mom as a pawn.
A new documentary tells the story of siblings who unite to bring to justice the fertility specialist who impregnated their mothers with his sperm without ...
The last sibling interviewed in “Our Father” is No. 61. But it is the siblings — their anguish and their anger, as well as the compassion they extend to one another — that drive the narrative. Cline’s deception upends the lives of his unsuspecting patients’ children, and the film is rife with harrowing insights about medical malfeasance and God complexes.
Donald Cline is the subject of Netflix's latest documentary Our Father. Between 1979 to 1986 Cline secretly inseminated his patients with his sperm.
Once very respected, locals flocked to Cline for fertility treatments, with the hopes of having families of their own. Cline's exact location is unknown, with the doctor, who is now in his 80s, keeping a low profile since the fertility scandal came to light. Once upon a time, Dr Donald Cline was considered to be one of the best fertility doctors in Indianapolis.
Our Father tells the stories of the victims of Dr. Donald Cline, who inseminated patients with his sperm, without their consent.
While the story Our Father depicts is relatively unique, the violation of a person’s ability to choose the circumstances under which they become pregnant, and the lack of legal protection of that ability, are not. The obstruction of justice charges meant that no evidence related to Cline’s actions toward his former patients was admissible—though those actions constituted the injustice for which the siblings and their parents were truly seeking restitution. In 2018, the siblings’ lobbying, led by Matt White and his mother Liz White, contributed to the passing of Indiana’s fertility-fraud law. “I don’t deny that it was a sexual violation, [but] ‘Dr. Cline committed rape,’ is a legal assertion that was not true, and I wasn’t going to put it on paper with my signature,” Tim Delaney, who was working in the prosecutor’s office in 2015, says in the film. Our Father’s main focus is on highlighting the lack of legal recourse afforded to the siblings and their parents. When the county prosecutors finally investigated Cline, the results were disappointing to the siblings, the women he inseminated, and their families. As the siblings waited for authorities to take action, Cline lived as a pillar of the community and an elder of his church, performing baptisms in his backyard swimming pool. He also began obliquely threatening the siblings with retribution should they continue their effort to bring charges against him and take their story public. In a moment when the right to safe and informed reproductive care is under threat in the U.S., Our Father is particularly resonant given the questions it raises about how our legal system views those seeking control over their own reproductive choices, and restitution when that autonomy is violated. He had his staff recite prayers together, advised patients to pray on their treatment choices, decorated his office with Christian sayings, and had an affinity for the verse Jeremiah 1:5 (“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I knew you.”), which is often featured in material extoling the Quiverfull lifestyle. The number of confirmed siblings continued to grow as more people added their DNA to 23andMe’s database. During the 1970s and ‘80s, a fertility specialist in Indiana named Dr. Donald Cline inseminated dozens of patients with his own sperm, without their knowledge or consent.
Here's what to know about disgraced Indiana fertility doctor Donald Cline.
Sibling Matt White suggests in the film that someone must have known that Cline was inseminating women with his own sperm. We learn in the film that Cline has an affinity for the Bible verse "Jeremiah 1:5," and Ballard notes it's "one of the Bible verses Quiverfull uses." It's unclear if Cline is actually the one speaking in the recording. (An actor for Cline is used in other parts of the film to re-create scenes). It's implied in the doc that Cline collected his own sperm just before he inseminated patients. "They were in fear that other races were infiltrating and the white race would eventually disappear," she says. I don't know," he says in the film. She says the Indiana Attorney General's Office sent her emails, she looked up the people who replied and everyone copied on the emails, and through that, she found that "one of the people with the state" had a "Quiverfull" email address. Quiverfull is an ultra-conservative Christian movement mentioned in the film. Cline is currently alive and in his 80s. The Medical Licensing Board of Indiana revoked his license in 2018. At the end, it's revealed that there are at least 94 Cline siblings.