Doctor donor fertility fraud...

[DGUtley]

Doctor donor fertility fraud...

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When Arianna Huhn experienced complications with her first pregnancy, she signed up for a clinical trial, one that required her to submit family DNA samples for research. Her parents, Gail and George Fogelman, agreed. But shortly after, they asked her to jump on a call with them, alone, without her husband. On the phone, Huhn noticed that her dad was choked up and unable to speak. Her mother took the lead. “There’s something that we have been hiding from you,” she said. “Your dad is not your genetic father.”

In the late ‘70s, Huhn’s parents had experienced issues when they were trying to conceive. So they opted for artificial insemination, as suggested by their gynecologist and fertility doctor. Dr. Benjamin Fiorica told them that he would perform the procedure using a mix of George’s sperm and sperm donated by a medical intern. The Fogelmans wanted their child to share a resemblance with their family and requested that the intern be either Jewish or Italian. Fiorica agreed to this stipulation. But he told the Fogelmans to keep the artificial insemination a secret — to hide it from their child. He claimed it would just “cause problems” and that it wouldn’t be “good for the child to know.”

Revealing this lifelong deceit to their daughter, the Fogelmans were braced for shock, anger, or even tears. Instead, Huhn began laughing hysterically. Learning she was someone else’s daughter wasn’t a betrayal but a relief. “I don’t know if vindicating is the right word,” she tells me. “But I had never felt a connection with my dad.”

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https://www.theverge.com/c/23157354/...andme-dna-test


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...fortier-nevada


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/m...aud-sperm.html