Posted on 09/18/2020 10:30:52 PM PDT by L.A.Justice
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Two lawsuits were filed Wednesday by families who have discovered that their fertility doctors secretly used their own sperm to inseminate the mothers of now-adult children.
In one case, a Livermore woman said that she wanted her sperm donor to be Christian and share her husband's ethnicity. She was horrified when she found out her daughter's biological father turned out to be her Jewish doctor.
The battery and fraud lawsuit against Dr. Michael Kiken, who most recently practiced in Lynchburg, Virginia, was filed in U.S. District Court in California. Another similar suit was filed against a La Jolla, Calif. doctor. Efforts to reach Kiken were not successful. Someone who answered the phone this week at the medical center where Kiken is listed as being employed said he doesn't work there.
Each suit, filed by San Francisco-based Adam Wolf, seeks unspecified monetary damages and for the doctors to reveal their personal medical history to the affected families.
In a virtual news conference, Wolf said the United States is “on the brink of uncovering thousands of fertility fraud cases,” mostly due to the result of the popularity of home DNA test kits like Ancestry.com and 23 and Me, based in Silicon Valley.
Wolf said he hopes the simultaneous lawsuits against the doctors will lead to federal and state anti-fertility fraud legislation. So far, Pew Trusts' Stateline noted that only three states have specific laws against the use of a practitioner’s own sperm to impregnate patients: California, Indiana and Texas.
One of the alleged victims, Katherine Richardson Richards, who lives in Livermore and who was one of Kiken's patients when he practiced in Alamo, Calif. said he violated her trust and essentially conducted "medical rape."
According to her suit, she had consented to be artificially inseminated with an anonymous sperm donor, who would resemble her husband in looks and ethnicity, which was Norwegian, Irish and English. The sperm donor would also share the couple's Christian faith, the suit states.
But her demands were not fulfilled, the suit alleges. Kiken, who used his own sperm to impregnate her, is Jewish. The suit states that Kiken was "much was much shorter than Plaintiff’s husband, slender, with brown eyes, and an olive complexion."
Richards said she was tricked.
"He secretly used his own sperm," Richards said of what happened in 1978. "Now I have to know that he violated me and that my children, who I love dearly, are the result of his disgusting conduct."
Her daughter, Julie Druyor of Dallas, who was conceived as a result, said she is “hurt, disgusted and confused.”
Druyor learned of the alleged deception and her father’s true identity after receiving a home DNA test kit as a gift. The test revealed she’s half Jewish. A genealogist helped trace the dots back to Kiken. She also learned she has a half-brother and she is a carrier for Tay Sachs, a rare disorder, which increases in people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestors.
“I’m a product of my mother’s abuser,” Druyor said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever come to terms with that.”
Wolf, the attorney, said it is legal to make specific requests, even of someone's faith, in a sperm donor.
"People frequently ask for sperm donors that match themselves or their partners," Wolf said in an email to KTVU. "That can include things like height, education, and faith. This is very common. The more relevant part here is that the doctors explicitly agreed to provide sperm from a donor that met certain characteristics. And then they lied about this, and instead inserted their own sperm into their patients."
A similar situation occurred to Susan Simon in Oakland, who is not part of this lawsuit.
She, too, learned her biological father was her mother's fertility doctor and that she had 35 half-siblings around the globe after doing a DNA test a few years ago.
When she found out, she said she was shocked at first. And then a little numb. She wondered if she should be mad.
And then she realized that she wasn't an only child anymore. She had brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and a whole bunch of relatives to meet.
Eventually, her feelings changed to gratitude.
"I got excited," she said. "What a gift at this stage in life to suddenly find a new family."
Or maybe he thought it was fun to use his own sperm...
It seems like a lot of fertility doctors do this. there was a big case back in the ‘90s. And there’s been a few recently.
Christianity isn’t a genetic trait. I wonder if she’s just an anti-Semite.
Not again. sigh
I saw this on a Law and Order episode. As they noted at the end, “Can’t wait for the paternity suit.”
Or you can just have sex with your husband and accept what God gives you (or doesn’t give you).
I saw this case on Law and Order.
From what I’ve read, sperm banks actually do a significant amount of screening before accepting donors. Random college kids wouldn’t have a chance. They usually want people with advanced education (typically a postgraduate degree from what I understand), along with clean physical and medical histories and genetic profiles. The better the donor profiles they carry, the higher the prices they can charge their customers. Supply and demand; you just can’t avoid it.
If the allegations prove true, then the doctor is a disgusting perverted fool whose career is over and freedom in peril. That is a horrible breach of trust and ethics.
Think its a kink with the doctor, like when you see those stories about men putting their sperm secretly in female co-workers bottled water. It definitely is abusive and wrong.
We need Jesus to return.
“Was that wrong?”
“ , like when you see those stories about men putting their sperm secretly in female co-workers bottled water.”
_________________
What in the world?
No, I don't think so.
There are Christians who believe that spiritual heritage can be passed from parent to child just like physical, genetic heritage can be, and would want someone with a similar commitment to God.
It happened in 1978, the doc is most likely retired now.
I suppose it’s not right, what the doctor did, but I have a hard time feeling bad because it’s not the way that God intended children to be born. He meant for two people to come together in love, to fulfill His wishes.
My last name is German, when I first got my results, it said I was 27% Irish, and 21% English. and had very little German blood. I only found 1 Irish ancestor in my tree, but found many, many Germans.
Now my results have been upgraded, and all of a sudden I have almost no English, but am over half Scottish!!!!
These “kits” are worthless!!!
Well, what you say makes sense. Perhaps it is God’s will after all.
>>said he violated her trust and essentially conducted “medical rape.”
But a man who pretends to be a woman to trick straight men into body contact and sexual gratification they would not consent to with a man is “just life”. And there are women too who’ve discovered after the fact that some guy was really a butch lesbian.
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