Our Father: Why Donald Cline Never Went To Jail

As hard as it may be to believe due to his egregiously unethical actions, Our Father‘s Donald Cline never went to jail – here’s why. Netflix’s documentary Our Father details the story of the former fertility doctor Donald Cline, who, during the ’70s, ’80s, and possibly beyond, would use his own sperm to inseminate his patients without their knowledge and consent. They were instead under the reasonable belief that the sperm samples were from either their husbands or anonymous donors. When Our Father’s Jacoba Ballard took a 23andMe DNA home test, she discovered that she had at least seven unknown half-siblings, blowing away her expectation of discovering one or two at most. This led her down a whirlwind journey leading to the reveal of at least 94 Cline siblings, a number counting to this day.

By telling the story through one of Netflix’s best recent documentaries, there’s a relative level of tact and sympathy toward the victims who can finally seek some modicum of justice by letting their voices be heard. The Cline siblings express the identity crises and complex trauma they experienced upon finding out their genetic connection to the doctor, and the dread they continue to feel upon discovering another sibling who they may or may not already know. With most of the Cline siblings living in the Indianapolis area, the risk of consanguinity (relations between relatives) becomes greater, especially as the full list of their siblings is yet to be identified. There’s then the added trauma for the mothers, whose bodies were violated, and the fathers who were lied to about their children.

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However, today Our Father’s Donald Cline is still a free man who’s engaged with the surrounding community. In 2017, he was put on trial for two counts of obstructing justice in relation to the investigation surrounding his illicit inseminations. He was charged with two Level 6 felonies, given a $500 fine, and had his medical license permanently revoked. As light as the overall punishment was in relation to his crimes, the medical license removal was particularly meaningless considering that Cline had retired eight years prior in 2009. Furthermore, while he faced jail time, his sentencing was instead suspended in lieu of a one-year probation period.