According to the Netflix documentary, Jacoba Ballard has 94 siblings. Our father the number keeps growing. Ballard and her mother were the victims of one of the most disturbing cases of medical malpractice in American history. This is the now famous case of Donald Kline, a fertility specialist who used his own sperm to inseminate his patients. The twisted story is not only a journey through the abuse of medical practices and restrictions on consent. It’s also a disturbing look at the legal whitewash that allows Kline and other cases like hers to continue to thrive.
Our father focuses on the long journey of victims in search of justice, recognition and validation. Also how Kline’s performance not only turned a medical procedure into a concrete crime. Director Lucie Jourdan uses the concept of the slippery slope of assisted reproduction procedures to tell a gruesome story. Slowly, representation of how Kline manipulated, attacked and eventually transformed, insemination is a weapon of power, embarrassing and terrifying. But much more is the fact that his actions have turned his patients into effective victims of an inexplicable circumstance.
Kline, currently at large, does not face immediate civil or criminal charges. Meanwhile, the number of their biological children is increasing. A specialist who initially denied the allegations and then asked for “mercy” in court, who is still defended and defended. Meanwhile, her “children” are suffering the consequences of an unexpected and violent aggression that has destroyed their identities and their lives as they knew it. Our father tells the details of the history of each of them, or at least those who wanted to participate in the production. Behind the secrecy, fear and shame lies most of the horrors that Kline committed throughout his career. Something that Our father a show with a brilliant script and especially attention to the perception of the collective tragedy that caused this affair and its myriad consequences.
Our fatherhorror behind closed doors
In the 1970s, fertility specialist Donald Kline was one of the most famous names in the pioneering field of medicine. Hundreds of families in Indiana (USA) have turned to his office for help with a wide range of reproductive problems. Over the years, and due to the success of most of his procedures, Kline has become a respected and loved person.
Most of his patients appreciated the doctor’s intervention in the possibility of paternity. And even his outwardly caring intervention in their lives years later. The expert has become a recognized person with hundreds of successes behind him. While Jacoba Ballard, one of the children born through Kline’s assisted insemination procedures, became an adult and began to trace her genetic lineage.
Our father shows Ballard’s struggle to piece together the dark puzzle of his biological history. During an informal investigation, the victim was able to prove his indirect relationship with at least seven children of Kline’s patients. He did this without the help of the law or any legal institution that ignored his claims for years.
A sinister experiment of alarming proportions
Gradually, Ballard managed to find a thread in the complicated case and demonstrate its reach. Much more troubling is the fact that the decision on reproductive custody in North America still has to go through uncertain legal venues. With a firm hand, the documentary allows Ballard to tell the story on his own terms. As if that wasn’t enough, exploring the endless facets of a hitherto unthinkable situation.
Each of Kline’s children found their family history tainted by a dubious and cruel medical examiner’s decision. Our father narrates an incident from cloudy wonderbut especially from the realization of the cruelty of Kline’s behavior. The mystery of his relationship has become a major crime not recognized by the American legal system. Immediately, in a domestic tragedy that ruined lives and turned the Kline children into unlikely guinea pigs.
“I know that every time I tell one of my brothers what happened, I ruin his life,” says Ballard. He explains, detailing each time he had to write and inform a stranger about what happened in Kline’s office. His face, pale and serious, is the meeting point of all the stories that surround him. As if it were a sinister mirror game, the film explores the possibility that Kline used his sperm for religious and even racial reasons. And again, emphasizes the similarity of the brothers. All blond and blue-eyed, with autoimmune problems. All genetic traits are inherited from Kline.
End without answers
Probably one of the most embarrassing moments. Our father is to demonstrate that the laws do not apply to the case of the Kline brothers. At first ignored by the Indiana legal system, Ballard had to fight for a confession from the prosecution. Once he had achieved this, the difficult road to achieving something resembling justice was laborious and thankless. The documentary tells step by step about the need to recognize the so-called children of Kline. But more importantly, an extremely serious medical condition that the law does not fully address, punish or understand.
To your dark end Our father just let it be known that Jacoba Ballart will continue to fight for justice. Not that you get it. Meanwhile, the number of children involved in fraudulent practices is growing rapidly. On the screen you can read “Ninety-Four Brothers”. “And it goes on,” he later adds, signaling that the tragedy of the Kline children continues. It gets worse and worse.
Source: Hiper Textual
