Imagine that you go to a fertility clinic to become a mother thanks to the sperm of a donor and the director tells you something like "quiet, the sample is from a trusted donor, I know him well", so good that he is himself. Yes, it's true, what lack of ethics, right? nevertheless it is a situation that occurred in innumerable occasions a few decades ago, knowing today that Berthold Wiesner, director of a fertility clinic in London, could have been the father of more than 1,000 children.
Mr. Wiesner, it is not known whether to fill the world with children Wiesners or to save the work and money of attracting donors, used his sperm in more than 1,500 women those he treated in his private clinic.
Everything happened from 1940 to 1972, which was the years he was in charge of the Barton Clinic, a clinic he ran with his wife. In 72 he died, so he could not continue populating the world of children who had their genes.
Nothing was known about this until one of his unknown children, the London lawyer David Gollancz, noticed a good day that the resemblance to Wiesner was more than evident. This made me want to know what their origins were. In full search he found the Canadian documentary filmmaker Barry Stevens (whom you can see in the photo next to his father's image), who It turned out to be another of Wiesner's sons, and that added to the investigation to try to know the scope of the "gracieta" of the doctor.
Having done the DNA tests on 18 people conceived in the clinic between 1942 and 1962, the results show that twelve of them are children of Wiesner. There is still a lot of work to do, but their children estimate that Berthold Wiesner got to do about 50 sperm donations per year, being able to become the father, as we have said, of about 1,000 babies.
You are probably thinking that in order to know the extent of Wiesner's paternity they would have to search the records and stories of the clinic's users. Well, it would be ideal if all that material still existed. Mary Barton, who was the doctor's wife, destroyed everything that could relate her husband to the children.
Via and Photo | ABC In Babies and more | The mother with the most children in history, The largest family in the world, The largest family in the US wait for your twentieth son
