Netflix's new documentary Our Father tells the disturbing story of fertility doctor Dr. Donald Klein. It was discovered that Dr. Donald Klein had inseminated dozens of women with his sperm without his knowledge. Jacoba Ballard recalls that when she took a DNA test, she discovered that she was an only child and had multiple half-siblings. It turned out that Klein was her biological father, and she became the first of more than 90 people (and counting) to learn that she was also Klein's biological child. (In this documentary, actor Keith Boyle plays Klein herself, recreating parts of the story.)

Many viewers left the film wondering what happened to the doctor who violated his patients for over a decade (at least, as far as has been ascertained). Unfortunately, the answer was as shocking as the documentary itself.

Klein opened his practice in 1979 and is believed to have been artificially inseminating women with his own sperm until 1986. He told his patients that his sperm donor was an anonymous resident and that no more than three sperm from one donor were ever used. It was only from DNA test records that the real children learned that Klein had used his own sperm. According to the documentary, when the six half-siblings confronted Klein, he admitted to using his own sperm and said his parents' records had been destroyed.

Despite the victims and their children's continued pleas for justice, Klein was never charged with rape. As one attorney explained in the documentary, because Indiana had no specific law that considered what Klein did a sexual violation, and because he was well known in the community as the preeminent fertility doctor in Indianapolis during his career, it was would have been extremely difficult to prosecute Klein for rape.

This is despite the fact that the victims interviewed in the documentary say that he would never have agreed to be a sperm donor and that they felt violated by what he did. Experts suggest that Klein must have been masturbating somewhere nearby while the women were waiting to be inseminated, and that he may have been suffering from the aftereffects of arousal during the appointment.

In 2016, Klein was indicted on felony obstruction of justice charges for lying to the attorney general about the use of his sperm on two victims and for threatening Ballard with a "slander and libel" lawsuit. After pleading guilty, he was placed on probation for a year, paid a $500 fine, and lost his medical license (although he retired in 2009); according to Fox59, Klein has paid more than $1.3 million in settlements to victims and their families.

At the time The Atlantic's 2019 article on Klein was published, he was in his 80s and still living in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. He kept a low profile, but still had a large following in the community. Several of Klein's children also lived in Indianapolis, some in close proximity to their biological father.

As to why he did what he did, no one knows. The documentary points out that Klein is very religious, has many Christian sayings displayed in his office, and is an elder in the church. He also often repeated the biblical phrase from Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed thee in thy mother's womb, I knew thee." He also has ties to Quiverfull, a Christian movement that encourages people to have as many children as possible.

His former church, in an interview with Fox59, admitted to the Netflix documentary that Klein was unethical, but claimed they were unaware of the extent of his deception; Fox59 stated, "If they knew then what they know now, Klein would be would have been removed from his position of authority within the church," it reported. Klein has reportedly since moved to another church.

In 2019, Indiana passed a state law (open in new tab) in response to Klein's conduct, and several of his victims and biological children pushed for its passage. The fertility fraud law makes it illegal for a fertility doctor to use his own sperm without the patient's consent and allows the doctor's victims, their spouses, and biological children to sue in civil court.

Unfortunately, Klein is one of several physicians who have been found to have used their own sperm on multiple patients over the past several years. (There is also an HBO documentary, "Baby God" (open in new tab), about a similar case in Nevada.) Currently, there is no federal law criminalizing fraudulent insemination by these doctors.