INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN/CNN) - The Indiana doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate his patients without their knowledge plans to plead guilty to obstruction charges. On Tuesday, attorneys for physician Donald Cline said he will now admit lying to state investigators after fathering more than 20 children.
Some of the children he fathered said they want more to be done to prevent this situation in the future. For some of them, there is a little bit of relief and a light at the end of a long tunnel.
“I’m ecstatic. I couldn’t be any more happy,” said Jacoba Ballard, one of the Cline donor children, many of whom are now young adults.
While a guilty plea will likely mean that Cline will be facing some form of punishment, some of the children he fathered, like Amber Stafford, say it’s not exactly enough.
“It was a kind of reassurance that even though he wasn’t here and didn’t say, ‘I’m guilty,’ it kind of gives you that feeling that he is owing up to what he did and admitting that what he did was wrong,” Stafford said.
But Cline won’t be facing any charges for impregnating more than 20 women. At least 25 siblings have been connected through DNA tests and the website 23 and Me.
“We want more justice, but we’ll get there, and we won’t stop fighting to get laws changed in Indiana,” Stafford said.
Indiana currently doesn’t have any laws on its books preventing physicians from doing what Cline did, so now this group is fighting for some, calling on lawmakers to use their stories to take action.
“This wasn’t just a handful of kids or mothers that this happened to that resulted into a handful of children,” said Matt White, who was also fathered by Cline. “We’re now into several dozen. And it’s going to continue to grow.”
Ballard said the large group is set to fight.
“We’re in this together, and it’s not just me, it’s everyone,” she said. “It’s all of our moms, my family.”
Some of the children hope to be able to give victim impact statements in front of a judge prior to Cline’s sentencing hearing. Cline will officially submit his guilty plea on Dec. 14.
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