Is Our Father on Netflix based on a true story?

If you’ve been on Netflix at all recently you might have seen a movie on the top 10 list titled Our Father. The story revolves around a former fertility doctor accused of inseminating dozens of his patients without their consent.

Indiana-based doctor Donald Cline would invite his patients to his service in order to assist them in getting pregnant, often with donor sperm or by using sperm from their husband or partner. But in at least 94 incidences, Cline substituted the donor sperm with his own, a serious breach of trust and horrific incident of medical sexual assault, as his patients did consent to this.

Even worse is that most donor sperm would be a limited number of times, to lessen the risk of creating too many siblings living in the same area, which could result in relatives becoming romantically involved unaware.

Given the horrifying story of a doctor fathering 94 half-siblings (and possibly more) it’s understandable that people might be concerned over whether or not this is a true story.

Is Our Father on Netflix based on a true story?

Unfortunately, Our Father is very much based on a true story. The film is a documentary that centers on Jacoba Ballard, one of Cline’s children. One day, Jacoba purchased an ancestry DNA kit and found that she was linked to seven half-siblings that she had never heard of before.

After some investigating, Jacoba discovered that they could all be connected back to Donald Cline. The initial group got together and started to uncover further connections to over 90 siblings, as disturbing as that is.

Even worse is that Cline was never really punished for what he did because there was no law or legislation about fertility fraud at the time of his crimes. The only thing that Cline got charged with is obstructing justice for two Level 6 counts due to lying on documentation.

He received a $500 fine and had his medical license permanently revoked—though he’d already been retired for several years by that point. So, in essence, all he got was a slap on the wrist. Since then, Indiana has made fertility fraud a felony, but there still isn’t federal legislation against the crime, according to the documentary.

That said, FOX59 did recently report that Cline and his group, Indianapolis Infertility, Inc. had settled multiple civil cases filed by donor children and their families, with an additional three still pending. Thus far, more than $1.3 million has been paid in these civil suits.