The “Barwin Babies” scandal: a fertility specialist used his own sperm to get his patients pregnant

Dan and Davina Dixon tried for years without success. But after seeking help from a fertility doctor, Davina gave birth to a daughter in 1990. They named her Rebecca.

For over two decades, the Dixon family believed Dan to be Rebecca’s biological father. But a DNA test taken at the age of 20 revealed that Rebecca was actually the daughter of the fertility doctor who had helped the Dixons decades earlier: Norman Barwin.

In 2016, the Dixons sued Barwin, who ran a fertility clinic in Canada for decades. Over the past five years, their demand has grown as more and more former Barwin patients have appeared. Now, Some 200 people are part of the class action lawsuit, alleging that Barwin used the wrong sperm – sometimes even his own – in the artificial insemination of at least 100 patients.

Including Rebecca, 17 people have found out through DNA testing that the Ottawa Fertility Doctor is their biological father and that they are what is called “”barwin babies”. More than 80 others do not know the identity of their biological father, but have discovered that he is not the man whose sperm is believed to have been used during conception.

On Wednesday, the Dixons, on behalf of hundreds of other former patients and their children, reached a tentative settlement to settle their case with the former doctor for $ 10.7 million. The proposed settlement has yet to be approved by the Ontario Superior Court, but a judge is due to review it in November.

Barwin did not admit any breaches under Wednesday’s deal. He has denied and continues to deny all of the plaintiffs’ claims, ”the 74-page document reads. In the settlement, Barwin said he decided to settle down to avoid spending more time and money fighting the case.

Contacted by the Washington Post, Barwin’s lawyer declined to comment.

For the Dixons, it all started to fall apart in 2016, they said in their lawsuit. Around February of the same year, Davina Dixon saw a message on Facebook saying that it was unusual for two people with blue eyes to have a child with brown eyes, which was the case in her family.

Davina made an appointment with her doctor, who suggested a DNA test. This confirmed that Dan was not Rebecca’s biological father.

“When I discovered it, I felt dissociated from my body and my face,” Rebecca said in 2016. “When I looked at myself in the mirror, I suddenly felt like it wasn’t. was not my face. Features of me that I had always loved, or that I considered to be just mine, seemed to belong to someone else, and I didn’t know who I was. “

“My world has been turned upside down,” added Dan Dixon. “Rebecca is our daughter, but she is not our daughter. It is, but it is not. And that’s why everything is different ”.

The Dixons began to investigate and in doing so “they couldn’t help but realize that Rebecca had a strange physical resemblance to Dr. Barwin.”The family said in the lawsuit.

Through Facebook, Rebecca met another conceived woman at the Barwin Clinic in Ottawa. When they logged in, Kat Palmer had previously used an ancestry website to trace her roots back to Barwin and, after prompting him to take a DNA test, confirmed he was her biological father, according to the trial.

Rebecca Dixon and Kat Palmer underwent DNA testing, which confirmed they were half-sisters with the same biological father.

After the test confirmed that Palmer was Barwin’s daughter, the doctor told him he didn’t know how it was possible, but admitted to his father, Lyon Palmer, that he used his own sperm to test a sperm counter, according to the article. by 2016 by the Société Radio-Canada.

“It didn’t make sense,” said Lyon Palmer.

In emails to the Palmers, Barwin claimed the confusion was unintentional, according to the article.

In 2019, Canadian medical authorities revoked Barwin’s medical license after determining he had committed professional misconduct. He pleaded unopposed and was ordered to pay a fine of $ 8,619. Before failing, regulators hired an experienced OB-GYN who practices fertility medicine to review Barwin’s case. The gynecologist concluded that Barwin caused “preventable harm” by inseminating dozens of women with the wrong sperm, some with his own.

The attorney representing the Dixons, Peter Cronyn, believes that Between 1973 and 2012, Barwin inseminated around 500 patients who eventually had children, so the number of plaintiffs could exceed the more than 200 people included in the class action lawsuit.

The maximum that can be obtained under Wednesday’s deal is around $ 40,160, reserved for patients who have DNA tests showing their child is not the child of the intended father. Patients who have given Barwin their sperm for storage, just to inseminate someone without their knowledge, can claim up to approximately $ 20,080. The biological children of these patients can receive up to $ 32,130.

And $ 75,000 will go towards the creation of a DNA database, which would be managed by Orchid PRO-DNA, which claims to be the largest DNA identification testing company in Canada. The database would run from August 3 to February 15, 2022, and would allow children born outside of Barwin’s clinic to identify their biological parents, get their medical records, and find half-siblings.

In a statement, Cronyn called the deal groundbreaking and unprecedented. But other fertility doctors have been accused of similar actions.

In Las Vegas, dozens of people accused a fertility doctor who was “doctor of the year” of secretly inseminating patients with his semen while undergoing treatment at a women’s hospital. The story was the subject of the HBO documentary “Baby God” released last year.

Doctor Quincy Fortier died in 2006 at the age of 94. He has never been charged with a felony, and he has never admitted wrongdoing or lost his medical license, The Washington Post reported.

In New York City, an obstetrician and gynecologist artificially inseminated a woman with her own sperm in 1983 after he had promised to use an anonymous donor, according to a federal lawsuit filed in May and collected by the Miami New Times. In the lawsuit, the woman who gave birth to her son accused him of what she calls “medical rape”.

In the case of the Canadian doctor, Rebecca Dixon said in 2016 when she filed her complaint that it was good to go public about what had happened. “I feel very strongly that the secrets are shameful,” Rebecca said, according to CBC. “One of the reasons I feel relieved every time I say this to someone in my life (…) is that it takes away that feeling of shame.”

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