Spoiler Alert: Our Father (2022) -- Article contains content regarding true crime and assaultFertility fraud is as old as fertility treatment itself, but until recently, it often went undetected. In its usual form, it involves the substitution of sperm of one person for that of another without informing the patient. Many cases have been uncovered since the advent of home ancestry kits allowed those curious about their family history to compare their DNA with that of others online - a manifestation of the modern obsession with genealogy that has made a success of such shows as Who Do You Think You Are? and African American Lives.

But, as Netflix's documentary Our Father released this week demonstrates, the revelations that emerge as a result can sometimes be far more sinister than anticipated.

The Undetected Crime

Baby God Documentary
HBO

Netflix is no stranger to controversial documentaries, but Our Father pushes the controversy to new extremes. Fertility fraud has been the subject of several documentaries in the last five years, most famously in filmmaker Hannah Olson's 2020 film for HBO, Baby God, which covered the activities of Quincy Fortier, a doctor from Nevada who hit the headlines after having been accused of using his own sperm to inseminate dozens of his patients at a facility in Las Vegas. He was sued by several of his alleged descendants in the 2000s and settled out of court before his death (in his 90s) in 2006.

Last year, the Dutch filmmaker Miriam Guttmann released Het Zad van Karbaat (The Seed of Karbaat), a short documentary series about Jan Karbaat, a Dutch doctor whose reputation as the nation's foremost fertility doctor seemed secure - until it emerged that he had impregnated more than 65 of his patients in the 1970s and 1980s. In the series, several ex-patients reported being abused by Karbaat, who died in 2017.

A similar story of undetected wrongdoing is portrayed in Our Father. The film recounts the journey of Jacoba Ballard, who decided to do research into her family tree in 2014 using a 23andMe DNA test. When over half a dozen half-siblings showed up in her area, she started to dive deeper. She discovered the mothers of all of them had sought fertility treatment with Donald Cline, a well-known fertility doctor in Indianapolis. When confronted with the evidence, Cline -- by that time retired -- gave short shrift, flatly denying accusations of wrongdoing at first, and refusing to assent to a DNA test.

When pressed, he eventually admitted that he had used his own sperm to inseminate patients when no other had been available, and insisted there were no more than ten people involved.

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It turned out to be a gross distortion. At the time of writing, 94 people have been identified as having been conceived using Cline's sperm. The documentary lurches from one unpleasant revelation to another, and Ballard's dignified yet heart-wrenching testimony is sympathetically related by the makers. She and many others affected by Cline's activities tell their stories in their own words.

A Lack of Remorse

Our Father
Netflix

Some of the men found to have perpetrated fertility fraud went on to recognize their wrongdoing, if only in a nominal way. As Our Father shows, the truly shocking thing about Cline -- a noted local philanthropist and a church elder -- was his complete lack of remorse.

It got worse: Despite Cline's protestations once his activities came under investigation, the fact that he suffered from an autoimmune disease meant that dozens of the children he fathered also have similar afflictions. According to one of his accusers, when he finally met several of his children at a pre-arranged meeting, he carried a concealed gun on his hip and prepared to quote scripture at them. Ballard was having none of it: "You're not going to use my God to justify your actions," she responded.

Trying to Cover up the Truth

Our Father
Netflix 

Perhaps the most astounding aspect of this story is the way in which Cline tried to get the very people whose blood relation he had previously denied to help him stop news of his actions from breaking in the press. When a local TV station began investigations, Cline contacted Ballard, asking her to stop co-operating with the reporters.

Ultimately, Cline escaped justice for a simple but staggering reason. At the time he carried out the fraud, fertility fraud was not a crime. In fact, at the time of writing, less than a dozen US states have passed laws against it. Although, as a result of the research carried out by Ballard and others affected by Cline's actions, Indiana was the first to do so in 2019.

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With a compelling, heart-breaking story and straightforward storytelling, Our Father is a highly watchable, if profoundly uncomfortable, addition to Netflix's long run of high-quality documentaries.