At least 94 Cline siblings have been confirmed through DNA testing as of 2022, and the number continues to climb as more people conceived at Dr. Donald Cline’s Indianapolis-area fertility clinic submit samples to consumer genetic services. The true total is almost certainly higher, because not everyone born from procedures at his Zionsville practice has tested.1Esquire. Our Father: Donald Cline’s Children
How the Count Grew From Seven to Ninety-Four
Jacoba Ballard, who had always known she was donor-conceived, took an at-home 23andMe test in 2014 expecting to find one or two relatives. Her results showed seven half-siblings. When she compared notes with two of them and traced the family tree, every mother led back to the same retired Indianapolis fertility specialist: Donald Cline.2ABC30. A Fertility Doctor’s Secret, a Special Kinship Decades Later
Confronted by Ballard and others, Cline eventually admitted to using his own sperm in roughly 50 procedures.2ABC30. A Fertility Doctor’s Secret, a Special Kinship Decades Later DNA kept pushing past his own count. By the time Cline appeared before a judge in December 2017, 22 half-siblings had been identified. By 2022, the confirmed total had reached at least 94.1Esquire. Our Father: Donald Cline’s Children
Why the Number Keeps Rising
Consumer DNA platforms work by matching new samples against everyone already in the database. Each time one of Cline’s biological children tests, the service flags everyone else in the system who shares significant DNA, and existing users receive notifications about the new relative. One test triggers a chain of discoveries.
Ballard has described the effect of that mechanism on her own life: “I walk around, and I can be related to everyone. I dread every new match that comes, but they just keep coming.”3Netflix Tudum. Our Father True Story Because 94 reflects only those who have tested and connected, the real figure is understood to be larger. Anyone born through Cline’s clinic in the late 1970s and 1980s who has not submitted a sample is not yet in the count.
What Cline Admitted
In a recorded phone call in May 2016, Cline admitted to Indiana attorney general investigators that he had used his own sperm on patients at his clinic. That admission contradicted an earlier written statement in which he had denied the allegations.4Medscape. Fertility Doctor Who Used Own Sperm Surrenders License His own figure topped out at about 50 inseminations. DNA has nearly doubled that.
What the Siblings Got From the Criminal Case
Prosecutors had no Indiana or federal law that directly criminalized what Cline did. Using his own sperm instead of an anonymous donor’s was not classified as a crime, as sexual assault, or as medical malpractice in any clear statutory sense. The only charges available were for lying to state investigators.5Fox 59. Dr. Donald Cline Pays $1.35M in Donor Siblings Civil Case Settlements
In December 2017, Cline pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. He received a one-year suspended sentence, a $500 fine, and $185 in court costs. He served no jail time.6WBALTV. Fertility Doctor Faces Judge5Fox 59. Dr. Donald Cline Pays $1.35M in Donor Siblings Civil Case Settlements One former patient, by then 66, told reporters, “I feel like I was raped 15 times.”7The Hastings Center. What’s Wrong With a Fertility Doctor Using His Own Sperm
Cline had retired from medicine in 2009, so his license had already lapsed. On August 23, 2018, his attorney surrendered the expired license to the Indiana Medical Licensing Board, which voted to permanently bar him from ever applying for one in Indiana again.8The Indiana Lawyer. Fertility Doctor Who Used Own Sperm Surrenders License
Civil Settlements and a Pending Statute of Limitations Fight
Several siblings and their families have sued Cline and his practice, Indianapolis Infertility, Inc. By May 2022, three civil cases had settled for a combined total of more than $1.3 million. Attorney Kent Winningham said each settlement typically included about $100,000 from the healthcare provider (through malpractice insurance) and about $350,000 from Indiana’s Patients Compensation Fund. Because the conduct occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, a $500,000 per-case malpractice cap applied.5Fox 59. Dr. Donald Cline Pays $1.35M in Donor Siblings Civil Case Settlements Three more were pending at that time.
A separate 2022 malpractice case brought by a plaintiff identified in court records as “Anonymous Child 1” matters for anyone who has only recently learned Cline is their biological father. Born in 1985, she said she did not find out until DNA results came back in 2022, after she watched the Netflix documentary. She filed within 20 days. Cline’s lawyers argued she should have investigated years earlier, when news about his conduct first surfaced in 2019.9Indiana Capital Chronicle. Indiana Court of Appeals Weighs Statute of Limitations in Fertility Doctor Deception Case
A Marion Superior Court judge granted summary judgment to Cline in July 2024, finding the limitations clock had started on December 31, 2019. On May 15, 2025, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed, holding that a “genuine issue of material fact exists as to when the appellant learned that Cline had used his own sperm to impregnate her mother.” The panel said mere general suspicion is not enough to start the clock, especially when a plaintiff has no reason to believe her specific conception involved Cline’s sperm.10The Indiana Lawyer. Court of Appeals Sends Case Involving Zionsville Fertility Doctor Back to Trial Court The case is pending, and the ruling keeps the door open for siblings who learn of their origins through DNA testing years after the public reporting began.
The Law the Siblings Helped Create
Frustrated by the suspended sentence, Cline’s biological children and their parents lobbied the Indiana General Assembly, testifying about the toll of discovering a fertility doctor had secretly fathered them.11Indianapolis Monthly. The Immaculate Deception12Indiana Legislative Update. Fertility Fraud13Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School. Fertility Fraud: Major Developments in Texas, Idaho, and Indiana
Governor Eric Holcomb signed the bill on May 5, 2019, making Indiana the first state to specifically designate fertility fraud as a felony. It also created a civil cause of action for former patients, offspring, and donors; a prevailing plaintiff can recover procedure costs plus $10,000 in damages.13Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School. Fertility Fraud: Major Developments in Texas, Idaho, and Indiana The law is not retroactive, so it cannot reach what Cline did in the 1970s and 1980s. It exists because of what happened, but it will not punish it.
In the meantime, DNA databases keep growing. Each new match is another sibling added to a number that nobody expects to stop at 94.