Fertility doctor accused of impregnating patient with his own sperm
A couple is accusing a retired IVF doctor of artificially inseminating the woman with his own sperm rather using than that of a donor in the 1970s.
The pair, from Florida in the US, filed a lawsuit on December 4 against Dr John Coates and then-named Central Vermont Medical Centre seeking at least $106,400 in damages.
According to a police statement, Coates agreed to inseminate Cheryl Rousseau with donor material from an unnamed medical student who resembled her husband and had characteristics she required.
Ms Rousseau had wanted a child with her husband, but he had a vasectomy that could not be reversed, according to the statement.
Coates performed the artificial insemination but inserted his own genetic material, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit says the couple recently discovered what had happened when their now-grown daughter sought information about her biological father through DNA testing.
The daughter determined in October Coates was her father, according to the police statement, first reported in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.
Coates’ choice to insert his own genetic material into Ms Rousseau “was harmful, offensive and constituted a battery upon Plaintiff Cheryl Rousseau”, the lawsuit said.
The former doctor denied he was the father of Ms Rousseau’s daughter.
He declined to comment when reached by phone on Friday.
The hospital, now named University of Vermont Health Network at Central Vermont Medical Centre, said it could not speak to the lawsuit but noted Coates had a private practice and was not employed by the medical centre.
Jerome O’Neill, a lawyer for the Rousseaus, said he did not know if other women were possibly affected but referred in general to other cases where more than one woman was inseminated.
The revelation comes after a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor was found to have used his own sperm to impregnate possibly dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous.
Dr Donald Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence last year after he pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice.
