After 40 Years: The Test That Exposed the Dark Secret of the Fertility Doctor

A lawsuit in the US reveals suspicions that a former fertility doctor, 91-year-old Dr. Frederick Dettman, used his own sperm to impregnate a patient without her knowledge in 1982. A DNA test revealed nine additional half-siblings. Dettman denies the allegations.

An extraordinary lawsuit in the US reveals suspicions that a former fertility doctor, 91-year-old Dr. Frederick Dettman, used his own sperm to impregnate a patient without her knowledge in 1982. Mary Ellen Lukezic and her son Joseph Ladutke Haider, residents of Wisconsin, filed the lawsuit after a home DNA test revealed that Dettman is the biological father of the son, and that there are at least nine additional half-siblings born through the same method. Dettman, who practiced medicine in the Milwaukee area until the 1990s, denies the allegations and claims he does not remember the events. The family's attorney, Al Fekler, said that additional women have contacted him with similar concerns. The mother said she would never have agreed to the procedure had she known the truth, describing the feeling as "raped." The son spoke of the shock caused by the discovery. The article reports the details from the lawsuit and quotes the parties.