The case was tried in 2017, but there was an NYTimes article yesterday where I learned about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/us/fertility-doctor-pregnant-women.html

There was a case in the 1990s of a Virginia infertility specialist named Cecil Jacobson who used his own sperm for artificial insemination treatment. He was LDS, and apparently many of his patients were LDS, which, among other icky possibilities, there would be plenty of opportunity for intermarriage of unknown cousins, what with Mormons tending to marry other Mormons.

This recent case was Dr Robert Cline in Indiana. Several of his patients artificially conceived children discovered through DNA analysis that they were half-siblings.

Two things make me wonder if this guy too was LDS. The primary plaintiff is Jacoba Ballard. If that isn't an old-school Mormon name, I don't know what would be.

There is also a report of a recorded phone call from another news story on Crimewatchers. I don't normally use that as a source, but Elizabeth Smart was mentioned. Turns out the reporter was named Elizabeth Smart, no relation to the Utah ES.
------------
"Cline then tells Jacoba his marriage is on thin ice and asks her to try to stop the TV station from reporting the allegations.

"My wife and I, after 57 years of marriage, have had a great deal of problems over this," Cline says on the recording. "She considers this adultery. I donated my sample. I'm gonna lose my wife. Our marriage will be over. Can you help?"

"There's nothing I can do. I can't stop them from doing anything," Jacoba says in the recorded phone call.

"It sounds to me like you're trying to do harm to me," Cline says on the recording. "I regret what I did but I can't go back and change it. One of my favorite scriptures was Jeremiah 1:5. If you'll remember, it says 'Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you.'"
-----------------------

First of all, that scripture is kind of a weird non sequitur in the conversation, and I can see an old pillar of the community Mormon saying something weird like that when he feels caught in a trap. Second, that particular scripture is probably the favorite Mormon pre-existence scripture.

Second his wife dumping him sounds Mo too. Can't say as I blame her, if she and his patients were all in the same stake. That'd freak me out.

This may all be coincidence, but Mormons are so weirdly warped about sex, that I wouldn't be astonished if this weren't another Cecil Jacobson-like case. He may have rationalized it as The Spirit™ telling him that these were meant to be his children as decided in The Preexistence™

I assume there would have been plenty of gossip in the local stake(s) in Indiana if he were LDS. Anybody from that area know one way or the other?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2018 03:04PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Yeah, mormons can be wacky about 'raising up seed'...

I dunno if this is Mormon weirdness, but a woman in my ward lost the baby in childbirth. The doctors asked her to donate the organs. She said “No, nobody’s cutting up my baby.”