this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
182 points (98.4% liked)

News

22846 readers
4500 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 37 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] BeefPiano@lemmy.world 65 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

Maybe the ppl who stole their user data told her

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 16 points 9 months ago

That means it's possible there are lots of others who haven't/hadn't realized.

[–] CobblerScholar@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not the first time this kinda shit has happened either

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TheMauveAvenger@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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??

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

We do not. I cannot find one case of a female fertility doctor doing that.

[–] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago
[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] Illuminostro@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wow, a doctor with a God complex... weird.

[–] derf82@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Illuminostro@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nah, the narcissisism is the main driver.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

At this point, isn't that just the expected outcome of seeing a fertility doctor?

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

Sadly yes, also insane that this isn't actually illegal in most states.

[–] krondo@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Porn is getting more realistic by the hour.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 points 9 months ago

"Egads! My donated sperm is ruined! Hmmm... Perhaps if I disguise my own sperm as donor sperm... Ohohoho! Delightly devilish, Seymore."

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That’s just rape with extra steps.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works -4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 0 points 9 months ago

Poking a hole in a condom is non-consensual though. This woman wanted the pregnancy.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] chitak166@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

People like you are why words lose their meanings.

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Word meanings do change over time.

[–] chitak166@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I said lose, not change.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Well my boy. Have a seat. Daddy needs to have "the talk"

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe the "procedure" was done under general anesthetic. Ew, that would be much much worse.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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 ;)

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So much do I love that you scare-quoted procedure, fucking LOL 🙈

Edit: Maybe she literally asked for it

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Is lazysocial really lazy, like chestnuts?!

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Very strange.