When Carolyn Bester underwent a pair of at-home DNA tests, she was curious about whether she could locate relatives of the unidentified donor whose sperm led to her conception 43 years ago. The results shocked her. The unknown family she discovered was connected to Merle Berger, a renowned IVF doctor who established one of the largest fertility clinics in Boston and assisted her mother, Sarah Depoian, in becoming pregnant. According to a new lawsuit, Bester pieced together the puzzle and realized the truth: Berger was her biological father and had secretly inseminated Depoian in 1980 under the pretense that the sperm came from someone "who resembled her husband, who did not know her, and whom she did not know." "It was truly shocking and devastating to discover that — that's your life's narrative and that's how you were brought into this world," said Bester, 42, during a press conference. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleges that Berger, a former professor at Harvard Medical School, inseminated Depoian without her consent using his own sperm. The artificial insemination resulted in a successful pregnancy for Depoian, and Bester was born in January 1981. "This is an extreme violation. I am still struggling to come to terms with it," said Depoian, a 73-year-old resident of Maine, in a statement. "I trusted Dr. Berger completely. We believed he would act responsibly and ethically. I will never fully recover from his violation of me." Adam Wolf, Depoian's attorney, claimed that Berger knew exactly what he was doing when he allegedly inseminated Depoian with his own sperm over four decades ago, despite informing her that it came from an anonymous donor. According to the complaint, Depoian is seeking "damages in an amount sufficient to compensate her for her injuries." "Some refer to this horrific act as medical rape, but regardless of the terminology, Dr. Berger's abhorrent and deliberate misconduct is unethical, unacceptable, and illegal," Wolf said in a statement. Ian Pinta, Berger's attorney, refuted the allegations in a statement to The Washington Post, emphasizing that Berger, now 82, was "a pioneer in the medical fertility field who, over 50 years of practice, helped thousands of families fulfill their dreams of having a child." Berger retired in 2020. "The allegations pertain to events that occurred over 40 years ago, during the early days of artificial insemination," Pinta said. "The allegations, which have changed multiple times in the six months since the plaintiff's attorney initially contacted Dr. Berger, lack legal or factual merit and will be disproven in court." A spokesperson from Harvard Medical School informed The Post that while Berger was academically affiliated with the medical school, his primary employment was at various Harvard-affiliated hospitals, which are not owned or operated by the university. A spokesperson for Boston IVF Fertility Clinic did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The fertility center released a statement to WCVB, an ABC affiliate in Boston, clarifying that the lawsuit pertains to an allegation that occurred before Berger's employment and before the company was established. "We would like to emphasize that the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility has significantly evolved since those decades ago, and the current safety measures and safeguards make such allegations virtually impossible nowadays," the clinic stated. "Patients can rest assured that our field continues to uphold the highest ethical and medical standards." The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions in recent years involving women who discovered that they were secretly inseminated by their fertility doctors. Several cases have resulted in fertility doctors owing patients millions of dollars for impregnating them through artificial insemination while falsely claiming the sperm came from an anonymous donor.
