A lawsuit charges that an Ottawa doctor at a fertility clinic in Canada fathered at least 11 of his clients' kids, secretly using his sperm in procedures to get women pregnant. Reportedly, there could be dozens of other wayward sperm cases, too.
In the class-action lawsuit, Dr. Norman Barwin is accused of using of his sperm and not the sperm of fathers-to-be or selected anonymous donors, CTV's news magazine "W5" reported.
The news magazine said that along with the 11 so-called "Barwin Babies," others have learned of births from similar circumstances.
Since the lawsuit was first announced in 2016, 50 people have now come forward to claim that they are a product of Dr. Barwin's alleged "mix-ups" and lawyers behind the lawsuit are advising all of Barwin’s patient over the last four decades to get a DNA test to be certain of their genetic makeup, "W5" reported.
The case is similar to a lawsuit filed earlier this month by a Washington state woman who is suing a Idaho fertility doctor after learning through an Ancestry.com DNA test that the doctor was actually her father, allegedly conceived at the physician's fertility clinic in Idaho Falls, CNN reported.
The Canadian news magazine said that before the incident Barwin, the married father of four, was respected in fertility circles, and a pillar of the Jewish and arts community in Ottawa. The South African native was a philanthropist who was awarded the Order of Canada.
The widening civil case has not produced any criminal charges to this point – and may never, Carissima Mathen, vice dean of the University of Ottawa's law school, told CBC Radio's "All In A Day" program.
"This could fall into a grey area where this is behavior that everyone would find repellant and abhorrent, if the allegations are true, but it may not squarely fit inside the definition of offenses within the criminal code," Mathen told "All In A Day."
"You have a number of offenses that seem close, but maybe not close enough." Mathen added, saying that the allegations might be viewed as a violation of one's body but still may not meet the standard for assault or sexual assault under current law.
In the Idaho Falls case, Kelli Rowlette charged that she did not know of Dr. Gerald Mortimer until the results of the DNA test and then finding his name on her birth certificate as her mother's doctor.
Her mother, Sally Ashby, confessed to Rowlette that she was conceived through artificial insemination, but believed it was with the sperm of her Ashby's husband at the time or an anonymous sperm donor, CNN said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.