Doctor used his own sperm to impregnate fertility patient: ‘I felt like a science experiment’

An Idaho woman is suing a fertility doctor she used 34 years ago, alleging that he used his own sperm to impregnate her. 

Sharon Hayes of Hauser, Idaho, said she sought fertility services from Dr. David R. Claypool in Spokane, Washington, in 1989 after she had experienced trouble conceiving. Hayes allegedly told Claypool she wanted to use an anonymous sperm donor, and said she paid $100 cash for several treatments. Hayes said she picked criteria that she wanted for her donor – for example, she wanted him to look like her then-husband – and was told that the sperm would come from a college student.

Last year, Hayes’ 33-year-old daughter Brianna Hayes was compelled to take a DNA test in the hopes of connecting with her biological parent and finding answers to some of the medical problems she was experiencing. After getting her results from the service 23andMe, she learned that Clayton was her biological father.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Sharon said after learning of her daughter’s results. “I was sick. I felt like a science experiment.”

In her lawsuit, Sharon maintains that Claypool violated a state medical malpractice statute that requires doctors to obtain informed consent from patients for treatment when he failed to get consent to use his sperm rather than that of an anonymous donor.

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Brianna said she has had difficulty accepting her newfound knowledge.

“I went through an identity crisis,” she said. “It’s ongoing. I’ve had to come to terms with the idea that someone committed this act against my mom. And that I’m a product of it.”

According to The Seattle Times, she felt so traumatized by the whole experience that she quit her job and ended her engagement. She moved from New Mexico so she could be with her mother in Idaho. The stress even landed her in the emergency room. She said while she was happy to find a number of half-siblings she had not known existed, she often feels guilt about taking the DNA test in the first place, saying, “This has rocked our world.”

While shocking, the family’s story is not unfamiliar. In recent years there have been a number of incidents in which fertility doctors have been discovered to have fathered children while mothers were under the impression that they were receiving someone else’s sperm, like the Dutch gynecologist who fathered at least 21 children, or the Detroit doctor who fathered hundreds of children. Because the infertility industry has been widely unregulated in previous decades, there are many people today who have had their lives upended with the knowledge that their biological parents were not who they thought.