North Dakota fertility doctor sued for secretly using own sperm in treatments

A fertility doctor is being sued for using his own sperm during artificial insemination procedures without the patient's knowledge or consent.

Dr Dennis Lutz used his own sperm repeatedly when treating patient Jean Ann Nelson at the Medical Arts Clinic in Minot, North Dakota, during the 1980s. Nelson and her two daughters, Tasheena Greaves and Janae Nelson Raymond, filed the complaint in North Dakota's North Central Judicial District. DNA testing has confirmed both daughters as Dr Lutz's biological children.

When Greaves showed her mother the DNA test that identified her donor, Nelson 'started crying', she told the New York Times. 'That was my doctor.' She added: 'I was dependent on him to help me. It wasn't right for him to do that.'

According to court documents, Dr Lutz told Nelson that mixing donor sperm with her husband's would raise the odds that her husband would be the biological father – a claim with no scientific basis. Even at the time, a 1980 study of over 200 patients had found no real difference in conception rates between mixed and donor-only insemination...