Two sisters made a startling discovery their biological father might be their mother’s fertility doctor who allegedly used his sperm without her consent.
Two sisters had their worlds turned upside down when they made a disturbing discovery that the fertility doctor who helped their parents fall pregnant, might be their biological father.
Maia Simmons and her sister Tahnee shared their story in The Truth About My Conception, available to stream on Flash.
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Their parents, Cheryl and John had difficulties conceiving children because John had testicular cancer. They turned to Dr Paul Jones to help them start a family. The doctor allegedly used his own sperm without their consent.
The sisters didn’t know their parents had conceived them using artificial insemination until New Year’s Eve in 2018, when Maia got a message from a stranger on Ancestry.com.
“I’m angry at him. I’m hurt. I want to ask him why,” Maia said in the program.
“It definitely messes with your head, you question your genetic identity, who you are as a person, what you fought for, in my case, 38 years of who you are and where you came from, is totally changed in an instant.”
Meanwhile, Tahnee questions what the physician was thinking when he allegedly used his semen for both procedures.
“It’s hard for me to think that it was anything good,” she said.
“There were so many other options. That didn’t have to be him.
“To know that I came into the world like that, with him taking advantage of my mother and her desire to have a family. It’s gross.”
Using genetic testing websites, the sisters have found at least 12 other half siblings who say they were conceived by the same doctor.
Dr Jones, who has neither admitted or denied allegations against him, gave up his medical license in 2019 after his alleged offspring came forward.
The Truth About My Conception explores how DNA testing uncovered a disturbing side to the largely unregulated fertility industry. Hundreds of women believed they were being artificially inseminated by anonymous donors, say they were duped by their fertility doctors.
Eve Wiley discovered she was the product of fertility fraud after she took an at-home DNA test and found out her mother’s fertility doctor, Dr Kim McMorries was her true father.
The clinician had admitted to Eve in writing that he mixed his sperm with a donor to inseminate her mother. At the time, it was legal for the medical practitioner to do so in Texas and anywhere else in the US.
“How can we have a $24 billion industry that allows for things like this to happen?,” Eve said in the documentary. .
“No one talks about it, and there’s no punishment, there’s no accountability.”
The rule prompted Eve to lobby a bill for fertility fraud in Texas and it passed. The law criminalises fertility fraud as sexual assault and classifying doctors as registrated sex offenders.
“It felt very validating to get that done,” Eve said.
“There are still bad actors, but you need to have these boundaries and consequences to prevent people from doing this.”
No federal law in the US prohibits or punishes doctors for unconsented use of their own sperm to inseminate a patient.
Colorado, California, Texas, Indiana and Florida are the only states to have created laws to criminalise doctors who use their sample.
– With the New York Post
Originally published as Sisters learn fertility doctor is their biological father
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