Film Review: "Our Father" (2022).

"Is he yours?" This is Our Father. This crime documentary film directed by Lucie Jourdan. After a woman's at-home DNA test reveals multiple half-siblings, she discovers a shocking scheme involving donor sperm and the popular and controversial fertility specialist Doctor Donald Cline.

American medical doctor and fertility specialist, Dr. Donald Cline, became notorious following a fertility fraud investigation where he was found to have inseminated patients without their knowledge at his fertility clinic near Indianapolis, which led to him being the biological father of at least ninety-six people. Cline received an undergraduate degree from Indiana University and his M.D. from Indiana University's medical school. After interning at Methodist Hospital, he was in the United States Air Forcefor two years and was in inactive reserve for twelve years until he received an honorable discharge. In 1979, he opened a clinic on 2020 West 86th Street in the Indianapolis area. Investigations started after Jacoba Ballard took a DNA test and found out she had seven unknown siblings. She would later learn that her biological father was her mother's fertility doctor. He acknowledged using his sperm to inseminate patients without their knowledge at his fertility clinic near Indianapolis, making him the biological father of over ninety people. After the investigations, Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. He was not charged any further, as there was no law in Indiana specifically prohibiting fertility doctors from using their own sperm. A high proportion of the children he covertly biologically fathered have auto-immune disorders. Cline's own condition of such a disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, would have excluded him as a sperm donor at his fertility clinic. In December 2017, Cline stood trial in Indiana. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstructing the criminal investigation into his actions for lying to investigators about using his sperm and was given a one-year suspended sentence. However, because he had not violated criminal law at the time he was given a $500 fine for obstructing justice by denying the allegations. He did, however, lose his medical licence. In 2019, Indiana became the first US state to make it a criminal offence for fertility doctors to use their own sperm without their patients’ prior knowledge and consent. However, no federal law is in placer for this offence. Currently, Cline's exact location is unknown, with the doctor, who is now in his eighties, keeping a low profile since the fertility scandal came to light.

The film delivers an absorbing cautionary tale about the shocking fertility scheme concocted by Dr. Donald Cline, the flawed response and investigation of Indiana District Attorney and ultimately the verdict of the Indianapolis court that failed to bring justice to Dr. Cline's victims. Instead of a rehash of an event that could be easily researched, the film takes the events from less than a decade ago and fills in people’s gaps in information and debunks commonly held beliefs about the event.

Simon says Our Father receives: