Fertility Fraud: what happens when your conception begins with deception?

Doctor Donor Fertility Fraud

                    By
                    
                        
                                Kudrat Wadhwa
                    
                
                
                    Art by 
                        John Ed De Vera
                
            
        
        
            A woman discovers her biological father was her mother’s insemination doctor.
            She wants to know how, and why. But first she has to meet him.
        
    
    
        
            
            
            
            
        
    




    June 14, 2022, 10:00am EDT



    
W

hen Arianna Huhn experienced complications with her first pregnancy, she signed up for a clinical trial, one that required her to submit family DNA samples for research. Her parents, Gail and George Fogelman, agreed. But shortly after, they asked her to jump on a call with them, alone, without her husband. 

On the phone, Huhn noticed that her dad was choked up and unable to speak. Her mother took the lead. “There’s something that we have been hiding from you,” she said. “Your dad is not your genetic father.”  

In the late ‘70s, Huhn’s parents had experienced issues when they were trying to conceive. So they opted for artificial insemination, as suggested by their gynecologist and fertility doctor. Dr. Benjamin Fiorica told them that he would perform the procedure using a mix of George’s sperm and sperm donated by a medical intern. 

The Fogelmans wanted their child to share a resemblance with their family and requested that the intern be either Jewish or Italian. Fiorica agreed to this stipulation. But he told the Fogelmans to keep the artificial insemination a secret — to hide it from their child. He claimed it would just “cause problems” and that it wouldn’t be “good for the child to know.” 

Revealing this lifelong deceit to their daughter, the Fogelmans were braced for shock, anger, or even tears. Instead, Huhn began laughing hysterically. 

https://www.theverge.com/c/23157354/doctor-donor-fertility-fraud-ancestry-23andme-dna-test

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