Doctor Reportedly Used His Sperm To Father At Least 11 Of His Patients Children
CNN is reporting that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Dr. Norman Barwin.
The suit alleges that the Canadian doctor was meant to use an anonymous sperm donor or the sperm from the male in the relationship for his fertility treatments, but he opted to use his own sperm instead.
The Ottawa based law firm that filed the suit is claiming that the irregularities go as far back as the 1970s with the most recent case being in the early 2000s.
Additionally, the suit claims that another 16 children, conceived at Barwin’s Broadview Fertility Clinic, do not biologically match the men that they have called their fathers all their lives.
One of the firm’s lawyers, Peter Cronyn, slammed the doctor for a massive breach of trust, adding that he expected Dr. Barwin to have fathered children, but was not expecting him to be responsible for as many as 11 children.
In 2013, Dr. Norman Barwin was suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario for two months.
CBC reports that his reprimand came after he admitted that he had inseminated four women between 1986 and 2007 with the wrong sperm.
Dr. Norman Barwin is the biological father of at least 11 children whose parents went to him for fertility treatment, according to lawyers who are working on a class-action lawsuit against the high-profile Ottawa fertility doctor https://t.co/VflHYedXbl pic.twitter.com/CRniKMdAml
— Canoe (@Canoe) April 6, 2018
In 2016, Rebecca Dixon, one of the original plaintiffs of the current lawsuit, learned that her DNA did not match the man she had called father for 27 years.
After asking her parents questions, she discovered that they had visited Dr. Norman’s clinic in the 1980s and began researching the clinic.
During her investigations, Rebecca could not help but notice that she bore an “uncanny physical resemblance to Dr. Barwin.”
Dixon eventually connected with Kat Palmer who was also conceived at the Broadview Fertility Clinic. During their numerous conversations, Palmer reportedly told Dixon that she had traced her biological roots using an ancestry website to Dr. Norman.
Palmer revealed that she had sent Dr. Norman Barwin an email on October 27, 2015, and he had confirmed he was her biological father.
The lawsuit action alleges that Dixon and Palmer have compared their DNA results and found out that they are a match.
Ottawa fertility Dr Norman Barwin's success rate was so high he was called "the Baby God" but everything wasn't as it seemed. An unprecedented class action lawsuit accuses him of using the wrong sperm dozens of times. "The Barwin Babies" @CTVW5 tomorrow at 7pm (after the Masters) pic.twitter.com/sqoFdxnoOw
— Allya Davidson (@allyaDavidson) April 6, 2018
Dixon speaking to KTLA admitted that she was hesitant about going ahead with the lawsuit, but revealed that she now believes it is the best thing to do.
“As I’ve realized the extent of what Barwin has done and the number of people he has affected in so many different ways, it certainly made me feel even more strongly that we’re doing the right thing.”
Dr. Cecil B. Jacobson used his sperm to purportedly father as many as 75 children, per a report from the New York Times. He had lied to his patients by telling them that he was receiving sperm from anonymous donors.
Jacobson also tricked his female patients into believing they were pregnant. He used hormonal injections to conjure pregnancy symptoms and also falsified images on a sonogram telling the women that they were looking at their fetuses.
He would later tell his patients that they lost their babies and begin another round of hormonal injections and tests in order to keep fleecing money off them.
