'born of a Fraud' - a Documentary Podcast on Insemination Fraud

The purpose of this paper is to present a podcast series on insemination fraud. Insemination fraud refers to situations where the physician performing the insemination knowingly substitutes the sperm sample chosen by the parents with a different sperm sample (including his own, another donor's or another clinic patient's), without the parents' knowledge or consent. The idea for this podcast emerged in the wake of two research projects that gathered data from over 30 people (parents and donor-conceived people) who had been victims of insemination fraud in Europe and North and South America. The scant research carried out on insemination fraud all point to the lack of social and legal recognition surrounding it. On the one hand, the experience of those affected is invisible, and the repercussions they suffer are downplayed. Indeed, their feelings come up against a social context marked by unequal relations between doctors who enjoy prestige due to their socio-economic position, and their status of patient grappling with fertility issues and therefore perceived as “desperate”. On the other hand, although insemination fraud can in theory give rise to civil and criminal proceedings, prescription periods, the destruction of evidence (such as medical registers) and the lack of concordance between the doctor's actions and the provisions of civil and criminal law, make it very difficult to convict them. Social non-recognition is therefore coupled with legal non-recognition. By choosing the podcast format, we want to give a voice to those concerned, and actively involve them in the process of disseminating knowledge. Our aim is to build knowledge not just about, but also with, the people concerned. The format chosen is that of a (scripted) documentary podcast. Each episode follows the same structure: a narrative interspersed with testimonials from people who have been victims of insemination fraud and interviews with various experts.