Sometimes, I wonder how different my life would have been if maybe I was the oldest sibling, if I was an only child, or even if I maybe had an older brother or younger sister.

Regardless of these thoughts that circulate my mind, when it comes to watching horror movies, I tend to run in the other direction. Any films that relate to blood, death, or just pure background music that lets you know that doom is upon you has just never been my forte. 

So naturally, when I saw the documentary “Our Father” pop up on Netflix as one of the top ten on movies, there were two things going through my head. One, I wasn’t sure if I was going to watch it, and two, I figured why I don’t try something new. I haven’t written a review in weeks, but it’s not even Halloween, so how bad could it be?

At the start of the documentary, Don Cline is as a fertility doctor based in Indiana. He is devoted to his job as well as his community. Cline himself was highly Christian and was very philanthropic in that sense. 

But as the documentary goes on, we realize that Cline is not who he portrays himself to be. Usually, when a woman is not able to conceive, there are a lot of contributing factors as to why that could be. The biggest problem within this documentary was that Cline himself purposely switched the sperm doses to create a familt of his own, but it wasn’t until decades later that his “children” started to notice the long lasting effects. 

As the documentary went on, I started to notice how this effected these “siblings” that he created. Jacoba Ballad being one of the first was able to uncover the very fact that Don Cline was trying to hide: he had purposely switched the sperm that he implanted within women to create a family of his own. 

As soon as Jacoba Balled suspected something she took a DNA test on 23andme, and that’s when her entire life changed. When Jacoba checked her family tree wasn’t only incomplete but it was anonymous. Not long after this was when Jacoba started doing some investigating of her own, she reached out to the news and even filed complaints but got no help from the public. 

When Dr. Cline was tried in Court because there was no rule saying that he had broken a law, he was given a warning. Cline’s story was not put out into the public but news articles were published about him and the siblings even talked about their experience on the Phil show. 

It wasn’t until long that the siblings had realized that Dr. Don Cline had been doing this for over 30 years. As of right now there are currently 94 Cline siblings and counting. But what astounds me isn’t the fact that the siblings were deceived but rather why they were punished for his actions, it sometimes makes me wonder why he is still a doctor and how it is not against the law to do this. 

My preconceptions of this documentary if anything has reversed roles and I advise that you watch it with a parent or guardian. It’s a documentary that’s heavily based on mystery but at times can get daunting knowing what’s yet to come or what the final outcome will be.