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Our Father, a Netflix documentary, is a misnomer because it follows Jacoba Ballard, Donald Cline's biological daughter, rather than the infamous fertility doctor. Despite the fact that the show appears to be one of the streaming service's true-crime offerings, viewers will be disgusted to hear that the doctor using his own sperm to inseminate non-consenting female patients was technically lawful at the time the events occurred.
Ahead of this Netflix documentary, Our Father's release lets look into who Jacoba Ballard is and how she discovered Dr. Donald Cline’s horrific truth.
Who is Jacoba Ballard?
Jacoba Ballard was conceived through artificial means. She always ached for a sister as a child, which set her on a path of self-discovery that would eventually bring her to the dark caverns of human depravity masquerading as Christian good.
How did she discover Dr Donald Cline’s horrific truth?
When Jacoba Ballard decided to take a DNA test to learn more about her biological background, she didn't expect to discover a seemingly endless list of half-siblings, according to the Netflix synopsis of Cline's story.
"After months of research and conversations with her many 23andMe matches, Ballard began to piece together the disturbing truth: Donald Cline, a man known as one of the most renowned fertility experts in Indiana, had inseminated dozens of women with his own sperm without their consent or knowledge."
In an interview with The Atlantic, Jacoba Ballard revealed that she was among the first to notice Cline's deception. Ballard described how she met a woman on an online forum for donor-conceived children as part of the publication's investigation into the fertility doctor.
The pair bonded over the fact that their parents had both sought help from Cline, but when Ballard looked the woman up on Facebook, she was astounded by their physical similarities. When confronted with the possibility that they were related, the two women decided to get at-home DNA kits, only to discover that they were not only half-sisters, but also had many more siblings.
One of the siblings featured in the Netflix documentary said,
"When I opened up Ancestry [a genealogy site], I had over 3,000 hits. All of these random names were popping up, and it said 'Close Family'."
Cline, of course, was not very cautious, and when Ballard used 23andMe to look for possible biological relatives, she was astonished to find seven siblings living in the same neighborhood. She contacted her matches, and the two of them collaborated to try to figure out who their father was, presuming it was a medical student based on what Cline had told their moms. Over time, though, the number of siblings increased, and Ballard's delight turned to disgust, then terror.
Our Father will premiere on Netflix this Wednesday, May 11, 2022.
