Preserve dead 'fertility fraud' doctor's DNA, court orders

A New York court has ruled that the DNA of a deceased gynaecologist who inseminated unwitting patients with his own sperm must be preserved.

A case accusing Dr Morris Wortman of using his own sperm in patients' fertility treatment was ongoing when he died in May 2023 after a 'homemade' aircraft he was flying in crashed after the wings came off. The court made the highly unusual ruling that his DNA must be preserved via a blood sample, to be used in any future legal cases that affect the doctor's genetic offspring and former patients.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Vincent Dinolfo explained that the order 'is based solely on the extraordinary and exigent circumstances warranted by the unexpected and sudden death of Defendant Dr Morris Wortman.'

The order requires the patient suing him to provide DNA samples for comparison. Morgan Hellquist, one of Dr Wortman's patients, discovered that he was her genetic father through DNA genealogy testing (see BioNews 1113).

Dr Wortman had told Hellquist's mother, also his patient, that the donor sperm he had used was from an anonymous medical student. Morgan Hellquist also discovered that she had at least nine half-siblings, born in the 1980s. Wortman's daughter with his first wife agreed to be tested and was also a half-sibling match.

Fertility fraud, as cases of this type have become known, is not currently a crime in New York (a bill has been introduced, but not yet passed). Even in states that have such laws, they did not apply in the 1980s.

However, Hellquist was able to sue Wortman for medical malpractice because he acted as her obstetrician-gynaecologist despite being aware that she was his biological daughter.

'He knew the whole time who he was, and I didn't. He took away that choice for me,' she said previously.

Previous fertility fraud cases have included Dr Donald Cline in Indiana (see BioNew 998), Dr Marvin Yussman in Kentucky (see BioNews 1151), Dr Norman Barwin and Dr Michael Kiken from Canada (BioNews 1004, 1064) and Dr Jan Karbaat and Dr Jos Beek from the Netherlands (BioNews 996, 1150).

'I think that we're just looking at—with the cases that have been found—the tip of the iceberg,' Professor Jody Madeira, an expert on fertility fraud from Indiana University School of Law, told the Daily Beast.