Dr Merle Berger told patient Sarah Depoian sperm had come from an anonymous donor, new lawsuit claims
A leading Boston-based fertility doctor secretly impregnated a patient with his own sperm despite telling her that it had come from an anonymous donor, new a lawsuit has claimed.
According to a civil claim filed in US district court in Boston on Wednesday, Dr Merle Berger, founder of Boston IVF and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard medical school for over three decades, secretly impregnated a patient, Sarah Depoian, who had been seeking intrauterine insemination.
According to the claim, Berger told Depoian the sperm would come from an anonymous sperm donor “who resembled her husband, who did not know her, and whom she did not know”.
“This is an extreme violation. I am still struggling to process it. I trusted Dr Berger fully. We thought he would act responsibly and ethically,” Depoian said in a statement released by her attorneys.
Depoian’s daughter, Carolyn Bester, who was born in 1981, only discovered that Berger was her biological father when she took at-home DNA tests from Ancestry.com and 23andMe this year.
For anyone wondering how he got caught. 42+ years later.
Maybe the ppl who stole their user data told her
Not the first time this kinda shit has happened either
There was a serial case like this that happened decades ago and was only uncovered due to the fact that gene sequencing is so easy to access these days. Apparently now the 100+ children have this weird chat group of all the half siblings. I know because my friend was one of the babies.
There is like one case a year of this happening. Use a fertility clinic staffed by women. No woman is going to go through the process of doing something similar.
Wasn’t there an article a year or two ago of a teacher serving people baked goods made with her SO’s semen? Crazy doesn’t recognize the boundaries of sex and gender.
More I mean a woman is not very likely to harvest her own eggs. And I still feel like a doctor stealing her SO’s semen to implant into eggs is much less probable than a male doctor simply doing it himself. In fact we know it is less likely because cases like this article are an annual occurrence whereas I have never heard of a female fertility doctor using her SO’s semen. Yes, crazy doesn’t recognize the boundaries of sex but one requires several more steps than the other which ups the chances of getting caught.
I cannot find a single insurance of a woman doing that compared to the dozens of cases that I can find men doing it.
Yeah but like… statistically it kind of does though? Or do we also have multiple cases where women forced sperm on unsuspecting people the same way these doctors who betrayed their patients in the most base, horrific way seem to pop up every year??
We do not. I cannot find one case of a female fertility doctor doing that.
Can’t believe we got a Not Just Men argument on FORCED FERTILIZATION.
Oh spoiler alert : a lot of states don’t have laws to even be able to prosecute this type of thing, let alone laws outright protects against it.
Simply amazing how often this seems to happen. I mean you can’t read about fertility doctors without finding at least a few examples of this kind of thing happening.
Wow, a doctor with a God complex… weird.
A lot of times it’s not even that. They just save a ton versus having to buy an expensive donor sample that needed screened and stored when they can just jerk off in a cup and pocket the difference.
Where is your authority on this subject coming from?
It was mentioned in another case I read about.
Nah, the narcissisism is the main driver.
Porn is getting more realistic by the hour.
At this point, isn’t that just the expected outcome of seeing a fertility doctor?
Sadly yes, also insane that this isn’t actually illegal in most states.
“Egads! My donated sperm is ruined! Hmmm… Perhaps if I disguise my own sperm as donor sperm… Ohohoho! Delightly devilish, Seymore.”
That’s just rape with extra steps.
It’s almost entirely unlike rape.
She wanted the pregnancy. There was no violence. She consented to the procedure.
It’s a violation of trust, to be sure. But that’s not rape.
WHO defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened[2] or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation”.
So we could say this was a violent act. It was a violent sexual act. It involved penetration, probably done by the doctor himself. It was non-consensual. How is that not rape?
If she never found out whose sperm it was she would be completely happy with the outcome. It was “anonymous” until it wasn’t.
How can one suffer a “violent act” and not know about it for 20 years? I think you’re stretching the definition of “violent” rather far.
The “penetration” and the entire procedure was completely consensual. That’s how it’s “not rape”. Rape is a violent sexual act. Pregnancy is often an outcome but it isn’t the goal.
This asshole injected himself into her family which is a huge betrayal of trust. Just not rape.
Kind of an interesting analogy. I kinda feel the same way about how intoxicated people who are made ro have sex are victims but a much drunker person driving is a perpetrator.
Edit: at a certain point, our legal and medical understanding of agency has to be addressed for inconsistenies like this.
It’s the same as poking a hole in a condom. That has been regarded as rape. Just because the sex or insemination is consensual, doesn’t mean rape can’t happen. If one party secretly changes the terms of the engagement, without the others permission, exerting power over them and harming them, it’s rape.
Poking a hole in a condom is non-consensual though. This woman wanted the pregnancy.
People like you are why words lose their meanings.
Word meanings do change over time.
I said lose, not change.
How did he administer it?
Well my boy. Have a seat. Daddy needs to have “the talk”
For real, how great would it be if this was a click-bait title and thats actually exactly what happened ?! Like they banged and she’s bitching about the birds and the bees exclusively?
Maybe the “procedure” was done under general anesthetic. Ew, that would be much much worse.
So much do I love that you scare-quoted
procedure, fucking LOL 🙈Edit: Maybe she literally asked for it
Dude, we were having fun here. Y u gotta go there?
Edit: btw, who’s General Anaesthetic, I didn’t realize it was a three-way with a millitary man no less ;
But why does General Anaesthetic gotta be on top, its her first time, let her ride him
Is lazysocial really lazy, like chestnuts?!
Very strange.
