A new lawsuit asserts that a Rochester, New York, doctor used his own sperm to artificially inseminate a woman after telling her and her husband the donor would be a medical student. The suit was filed by Morgan Hellquist, the daughter of the woman, who had been told by her parents as a child that she was donor-conceived, and that Dr. Morris Wortman was the “family’s hero” for “achieving this miracle.” However, she came to suspect the doctor might be her own biological father in 2021, after he’d been treating her as an adult for a number of years. Discovering the existence of a half-dozen half-siblings between 2012 and 2021, Hellquist was distraught and confused as she learned the anonymous man who had fathered her “had been a serial sperm donor,” according to the suit.

The filing claims that Hellquist’s suspicions were aroused when, during an appointment earlier this year, the doctor chuckled and said, “You’re a really good kid, such a good kid.” She tested one of her half-siblings’ DNA against Wortman’s daughter’s in May of this year, and confirmed that there was a 99.99 percent chance Wortman was her father. Wortman has been “diagnosed with and treated for mental illness, including bipolar disorder,” according to the suit. He performed two IUD placements and a number of other transvaginal procedures on his biological daughter over a period of nine years. She is now seeking monetary damages for “significant trauma,” the amount to be determined at trial.