John Coates, a fertility doctor in Vermont, in the United States, is accused of using his own sperm to fertilise one of his patients’ eggs in the 1970s. Following a genetic test conducted on Ancestry.com, which revealed the identity of her biological father, the daughter of a Florida couple sued the doctor in a US district court on 4 December 2018.
However, Dr Coates considers that the law protects him because it prohibits children conceived through anonymous sperm donation from undergoing genetic tests to find their biological father. His lawyer said that “Vermont law prohibits DNA paternity testing of sperm donors”, and that this parentage law was designed precisely to protect donor anonymity, exempting them from paternity testing.
For further reading:
In Indiana, towards a crime of “fertility fraud”?
Washington Times (09/02/2019) – Accused fertility doc says law protects him from DNA test
