Fertility fraud

Fertility fraud is the failure on the part of a fertility doctor to obtain consent from a patient before inseminating her with his own sperm. This normally occurs in the context of people using assisted reproductive technology (ART) to address fertility issues.

The term is also used in cases where donor eggs are used without consent[1] and more broadly, to instances where doctors and other medical professionals exploit opportunities that arise when people use assisted reproductive technology (ART) to address fertility issues. This may give rise to a number of different types of fraud involving insurance, unnecessary procedures, theft of eggs, and other issues related to fertility treatment.[2]

Types

Although the main sense of fertility fraud is non-consensual insemination of a patient by her doctor,[3][4] there are many other types of fertility fraud, and it can take place at various stages of fertilization:

  • Competing for patients via misleading information about success rates, either in advertising or during personal interviews[2]
  • Performing an ART procedure not covered by insurance, and then billing for a different procedure[2]
  • Performing unnecessary or futile procedures on patients who are misinformed or poorly informed[2]
  • False claims of pregnancy, followed by assertions of fetal death[2]
  • Misuse of sperm, eggs, and embryos, in particular, a health care person substituting their own sperm for donor sperm[2][4]
  • Inadequate screening of donors[5]
  • Embezzlement from sperm banks, or theft of human eggs ("egg-snatching") or embryos, or use of eggs without consent[1]

Egg theft

One of the earliest cases involved egg theft occurred in 1987 at Garden Grove California, in a clinic run by Doctor Ricardo Asch. Asch took eggs from women undergoing diagnostic procedures and used them in fertility procedures in other women. An estimated 67 women were victims of egg or embryo theft.[6]

Doctor Ricardo Asch along with two partners were accused of taking eggs and embryos from patients without their consent, and using them to cause pregnancies in other women, along with defrauding insurance companies. Thirty-five patients filed legal actions against him.[7]

Insemination fraud

There have been numerous cases of a health care provider fraudulently substituting their own sperm for donor sperm, resulting in pregnancy and birth.[4]

The first "test tube baby" was facilitated by Robert Edwards in 1978, and he allegedly used eggs without the consent of the women involved.[1]

Cecil Jacobson, a fertility doctor in the 1980s in Virginia, was originally found to be the biological father of at least seven of his patients' children, including one patient who was supposed to have been inseminated with sperm provided by her husband. DNA tests have since linked Jacobson to at least 15 such children, and it has been suspected that he fathered as many as 75 children by impregnating patients with his own sperm.[8] He could not be prosecuted because no law existed in Virginia prohibiting it.

Donald Cline used his own sperm in his fertility practice in Indianapolis the 1970s and 1980s to father dozens of children. This came to light in 2014, when home DNA test kits were proliferating, and led to the discovery of Cline having used his own sperm to fertilize his patients' eggs. Because there was no law concerning the practice in Indiana, he was charged with obstruction of justice, false advertising, and immoral conduct, and lost his license to practice medicine. The first law in the United States came into effect in 2019 in the State of Indiana as a result of this case. Similar cases were found in other states.[9][10]

John Boyd Coates III, a Vermont fertility doctor has had two lawsuits filed against him and has been charged with using his own sperm in cases going back 40 years. His license has since been revoked and a $5.25 million dollar judgment in damages awarded to the first plaintiff.[11][12]

Jos Beek a gynaecologist in the Netherlands conceived 21 children and potentially dozens more using his own sperm after prospective parents turned to him for fertility treatment, an investigation has discovered. He worked at Elisabeth hospital in Leiderdorp, now part of Alrijne hospital, between 1973 and 1998. He died in 2019.[13]

Jan Karbaat a fertility doctor in the Netherlands fathered 90 confirmed children and may have as many as 200 children.[14] He passed away in 2017.

Norman Barwin and Ottowa Fertility Doctor paid out a settlement $13.375 million to his 17 children conceived in his clinic in Canada November 2, 2021. A total of 244 former patients and their children, including 17 children conceived using his own sperm, are among claimants.[15]

In the United States, medical students in the 1960s and 1970s donated sperm, and later while trying to develop their practice as a physician, may have gone on to use their own sperm in order to establish a track record of success. There were no laws on the books at the time prohibiting such activity.[16]

Hundreds of children have been fathered by non-consensual insemination worldwide by their physician, including in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, but without specific laws outlawing it, the legal consequences are unclear. Sometimes other laws related to the fertility fraud are used against the physician, such as mail, travel, or wire fraud, while others face civil suits. Some physicians have faced ethics charges by the governing bodies of their profession and lost their license to practice medicine.[4]

Activists have pushed for legislation that would make fertility fraud a crime, and as of February 2022, seven U.S. states have passed laws, and seven others were considering it.[16]

Scope

In the United States, over fifty fertility doctors have been accused of fraud in connection with donating sperm.[16]

See also

References
  1. Salinger 2013, p. 315.
  2. Salinger 2013, p. 332.
  3. Fox 2019, p. 918.
  4. Lemmens 2020, § 371.
  5. Weisberg 2020, p. 771.
  6. McCuen 2000, p. 58.
  7. Marquis 1995.
  8. NYT 1992, p. 14.
  9. Cha 2018.
  10. Zhang 2019.
  11. Keays, Alan J. (2022-03-28). "Former fertility doctor takes stand, admits using own sperm to impregnate woman". VTDigger. Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  12. Dyer, Owen (2022-04-05). "US fertility doctor must pay $5m damages for using own sperm in IVF". BMJ. 377: o895. doi:10.1136/bmj.o895. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 35383093.
  13. "Netherlands fertility doctor used own sperm to father 21 children". the Guardian. 2022-02-02. Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  14. Thorne, Will (2021-03-04). "Docuseries 'Seeds of Deceit' Unravels Twisted Tale of Fertility Doctor Who Used His Own Sperm". Variety. Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  15. "Settlement against disgraced Ottawa fertility doctor Norman Barwin gets court approval". ottawacitizen. Retrieved 2022-04-15.
  16. Mroz 2022.

Works cited

Further reading
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