Woman accuses fertility doctor of secretly using own sperm

A woman is suing a New York fertility doctor, claiming he used his own sperm to secretly impregnate multiple patients — something she said she discovered when DNA genealogy tests revealed she had at least nine half-siblings.

The lawsuit was filed Saturday by the 35-year-old daughter of a woman who got fertility treatments from Dr. Morris Wortman in Rochester in the 1980s. It said he falsely told the family the sperm donor had been a local medical student. He kept the truth a secret, the lawsuit said, even after the woman, his biological daughter, became his gynecology patient.

Wortman was with patients and unavailable for comment Tuesday, his Rochester office said. The office did not immediately respond when asked for the name of an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

The case is one of more than 20 instances in recent years where fertility doctors have been accused of using their own sperm, rather than samples from anonymous donors, to treat patients. The discovery of such scenarios has been made possible with the rise of genealogy sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.

In Indiana, Dr. Donald Cline was accused of using his own sperm to impregnate as many as dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous. He ultimately pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during an investigation and was given a one-year suspended sentence.

HBO released a documentary last year, “Baby God,” about a Nevada doctor accused of inseminating multiple patients with his sperm. In another example, a Colorado doctor was sued by at least six families alleging negligence and fraud for allegedly using his own sperm in several successful artificial insemination procedures from 1975 to 1989. A New Jersey woman sued a former New York doctor with similar allegations earlier this...